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August 15, 2007

Special Report Roundtable - Aug 15

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN MCCORMACK, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: They now have tentacles into all sorts of different activities, and to business activities, and to banking activities. We all know about their support for those groups. They're going after our troops in Iraq. We also have talked about their supplying arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan.

ALIREZA JAFARZADEH, FOX FOREIGN AFFAIRS ANALYST: It controls every important aspect of the regime, from running the entire executive branch, to the nuclear weapons program, to all the terrorist operations of the regime in Iraq, to their contacts and funding of the terrorist groups around the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANGLE: OK. There you hear some comments today on the administration's plans to crack down on Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is sort of a parallel military.

Let me introduce the panel before I start asking questions. Some analytical observations from Fred Barnes, Executive Editor of The Weekly Standard, Nina Easton, Washington Bureau Chief of Fortune Magazine, and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer.

So, Charles, it is sort of a parallel military corps that, apparently, does not answer to the regular military, and has all these side activities, including businesses to support those activities. What do you make of this?

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: These are pretty serious bad guys. They not only have army, their have their own Navy and Air Force. It is not just a bunch of guys running around with rifles.

They also have this huge economic enterprise that feeds them and supports them, and the terror allies around the region--Hezbollah and others. And, of course, the terrorists, and al-Sadr, the Mahdi Army in Iraq.

This is a very important step. We have tried to put sanctions on the Iranians through the Security Council, but that has been a bust, essentially because the measures we already have are weak. The Russians and the Chinese are protecting Iran and preventing just the step that we are about to take.

But it is unfortunate that this has leaked, because it would freeze the assets and prevent the banking activity of these front organizations. And having a heads up on this is going to allow them to move their assets around in advance of the freezing.

ANGLE: Nina, what do you think? How do you think this is going to work, since we have not had as much support as we wanted from, say, the Europeans, and given the fact that now that kind of know what is coming?

NINA EASTON, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, FORTUNE MAGAZINE: I think this, to some extent, think about it as a way to end run the Europeans, because we do not have direct commercial linkages with Iran, or certainly with the Revolutionary Guard.

But, as Charles mentioned, they have these tremendous commercial enterprise in telecommunications, pharmaceuticals. They basically run the nuclear program in Iran, and are in charge of importing everything that goes along with that.

And a lot of it is run through front groups, often dealing with European companies. And this is an attempt to go after them on this secondary-sanctions way.

I think the Democratic chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Lantos, said it best today when he said, "Foreign banks should think twice, now, about dealing with the Revolutionary Guard." And I think that is what these are aimed at going after.

ANGLE: Yes, freezing their money.

Fred, it is disturbing that this group, the Revolutionary Guard, would be the ones who are controlling the nuclear operations in this country, which gives people even more reasons to suspect that it is being used for nefarious reasons.

FRED BARNES, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, WEEKLY STANDARD: Are you suggesting that that is a bit scary?

ANGLE: Yes, I am indeed.

BARNES: I agree.

ANGLE: Now, what do you make of this? And it appears that there is very broad support in Congress. The bill, in the since of a Congressional resolution, that would encourage the administration to do exactly this had 323 co-sponsors, or 323 supporters.

BARNES: It is a rather large majority. And it is, obviously, the right thing to do. I think it will have some effect, I do not know how much--probably not that much.

I noted when Sean McCormick, who you had the bit from, the State Department spokesman, said at the beginning of his briefing that he just could not talk about this whole thing because the decision had not been made, then he talked about it a lot.

And he said one thing that was interesting in particular to me, and that is that the hope is that there, somewhere in the Iranian government, there is somebody is doing cost-benefit analysis. And that person will say "Wait a minute. This stuff that these Revolutionary Guards are doing, the cost is too high for their activities. We are going to have to stop doing this stuff."

I have no doubt there are those people in the Iranian government doing cost-benefit analysis. Unfortunately, they aren't the people making the decisions. Those people are religious ideologues, who I do not think this designation of the Revolutionary Guard as terrorist is going to affect at all.

ANGLE: Nina?

EASTON: Part of this is psychological warfare. I think the administration, like others, understands that there are different elements to the Iranian government, and by putting the squeeze on extremists--at the same time President Bush is trying to appeal to the Iranian people, saying, you do not want to be economically isolated, you don't want to lose economic opportunities--come with us.

So I think part of this is a psychological squeeze.

ANGLE: And it is the next step. And we have to do this step by step. This is it.

All right, when we come back with the panel, opponents in both parties are taking shots at Democrat Barack Obama, some over a remark about the U.S. military in Afghanistan. A look at the latest dispute next. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN BARACK OBAMA, (D) ILLINOIS: We have to get the job done there. And that requires us to have enough troops that we are not just their air raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there.

MITT ROMNEY, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It is an extraordinary statement, a disappointing statement. He has now--how many times?--three, four, or five times said things that he must badly recognize as being a huge error.

I think it is dispiriting to our troops. It is disrespectful of our troops to say such a thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANGLE: OK. There is Romney today, commenting on something Obama said earlier this week. In fairness, he was talking about taking troops out of Iraq and moving them to Afghanistan.

It is one of two things we are going to look at today as people, both outside and inside his party, Charles, start taking shots at Obama. What did you make of this exchange? And it does appear that Romney is taking a somewhat more aggressive stance here in the last few days, going after people in both parties.

KRAUTHAMMER: Well, Romney saw an opportunity here, but even an opportunist is sometimes right. His critique was exactly right. Obama has been trying to establish his credentials on foreign affairs for the last couple of weeks It has been a disaster. Every time he opens his mouth on foreign affairs, he makes a mistake, something that his staff has to walk back.

And this is a mistake, because it implies that our only strategy in Afghanistan is to wipe out of villages with air power, Soviet Style. That is not what is happening on the ground, and, in fact, if you look at the conduct of this war in Afghanistan and Iraq, it has been the most disciplined, ethical, and restrained of just about any war in the last century.

Hundreds of thousands of troops rotating in Afghanistan and Iraq, and you can count the number of atrocities on one hand. So, to imply that either our troops or our strategy is out of control and indiscriminately attacking villages and civilians is a big mistake, and another mistake.

And it is a novice mistake of someone who not only is a novice, but appears to be subject to the most crude, left wing understandings of how we are conducting the war.

EASTON: I disagree. I think this is one of those cases--I think he could of been criticized for some of the past statements. This is one of those cases where it has been taken out of context and worked in this presidential election season.

He was trying to make the case the we need more ground troops, that air power is leading to civilian casualties. The Associated Press actually came to his defense today, showing that civilian casualties by western forces are actually more than militant casualties this year. President Karzai was at the White House complaining about civilian casualties.

But what happens in the course of a presidential election season, in a case where Barack Obama, the big question about him is, is he just a celebrity, or is he really a tested leader. And that has been his weakness, and people like Mitt Romney are going to pounce.

ANGLE: Fred, let me ask you about a separate thing. Between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton--we have a couple of quotes here. Barack Obama gave an interview to Dan Balz of The Washington Post, and said "I believe I can bring this country together in a way she cannot do. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't be running."

That prompted Howard Wilson from the Clinton campaign to say "It is unfortunate the Senator Obama is turning away from the politics of hope, and employing attack politics instead. That is certainly not going to bring our party, our country together. It is Senator Clinton who has the strength and the experience to make the change this nation needs."

And today in the Iowa, Obama was also saying "Part of the problem is not just George Bush in the White House. We can't just change political parties and continue to do things the same way," suggesting that would be the case if Hillary Clinton were elected.

BARNES: He does not want to bring back the Clinton administration, that is for sure.

Going back to the earlier thing, Obama clearly shoots from the hip with this stuff. But on this one, about the Clintons, and about Hillary, I think he is basically right. She is a much more polarizing figure than he is.

Now, he parades around being the guy that is going to work across the aisle, and so on, and he's Mr. de-polarization, and Mr. non-partisan, and so on. One of the Republican Senators refers to him as "Senator Bring us together,"

Sarcastically at that, because he hasn't brought anybody together. But, look, Hillary is extremely polarizing. And Obama, if he did what he says he would do in his book, I think he would have a better chance of bringing people together than Hillary would. I don't know whether this is a hump in the campaign, but, anyway, that's it.

ANGLE: OK. Thank you very much. That is it for the panel. But stay tuned to see what happens when late night talk show hosts tee off with some of the presidential candidates.

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