Obama Favors ‘Big Sticks and Big Carrots’ for Iran

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SDEROT, Israel — Democratic presidential candidate Senator Obama defended his proposal to negotiate with Iran today and said he would use “big sticks and big carrots” to persuade the country’s leaders not to develop nuclear weapons.

“My whole goal in terms of having tough, serious direct diplomacy is not because I’m naive about the nature of any of these regimes. I’m not,” Mr. Obama said at a press conference. “It is because if we show ourselves willing to talk and to offer carrots and sticks in order to deal with these pressing problems, and if Iran then rejects any overtures of that sort, it puts us in a stronger position to mobilize the international community to ratchet up the pressure on Iran.”

He said a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a threat to both Israel and America.

The campaign of Republican presidential candidate Senator McCain quickly responded that Mr. Obama was backtracking on his expressed willingness to meet with Iran’s leaders without preconditions.

A year ago, Mr. Obama was asked whether he would meet personally, without preconditions, with leaders of Iran and other hostile nations during the first year of his administration to resolve differences with America. Mr. Obama said he would.

Today, Mr. Obama said, “I think that what I said in response was that I would at my time and choosing be willing to meet with any leader if I thought it would promote the national security interests of the United States of America. And that continues to be my position. That if I think that I can get a deal that is going to advance our cause, then I would consider that opportunity. But what I also said was that there is a difference between meeting without preconditions and meeting without preparation.”

This was Mr. Obama’s second press conference during his trip to Afghanistan, Iraq, the Middle East, and Europe, part of his campaign’s attempt to establish his credentials as a potential world leader. He spoke at Sderot, near the Gaza border. The city has been a frequent target of rocket attacks from Palestinian militants, and the news conference was held beside a display of the spent rockets.

Mr. Obama tried to use today’s event to allay doubts about his support for Israel. Many Israelis are worried by Mr. Obama’s willingness to talk to Tehran, a bitter enemy of the Jewish state. Many American Jewish voters supported Mr. Obama’s rival Senator Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, and some have questioned his commitment to Israel.

Mr. Obama said it is in Israel’s interest to achieve a lasting peace with the Palestinian Arabs, but he emphasized Israeli’s right to defend itself. He also said that Jerusalem will be the capital of Israel, but that the issue should be settled through negotiation.

“That’s an issue that has to be dealt with the parties involved, the Palestinians and the Israelis, and it is not the job of the United States to dictate the form in which that will take, but rather to support the efforts that are being made right now to resolve these very difficult issues that have a long history,” Mr. Obama said.

Many Israelis are concerned that Mr. Obama — a first-term American senator with little foreign policy experience — would push Israel too hard in negotiations with the Palestinian Arabs. His family’s Muslim roots have added to the unease, even though Mr. Obama is a Christian.

“I bring to Sderot an unshakable commitment to Israel’s security,” Mr. Obama said. “The state of Israel faces determined enemies who seek its destruction. But it also has a friend and ally in the United States that will always stand by the people of Israel.”

Palestinian Arabs doubt Mr. Obama or any other American leader would reverse what they see as Washington’s bias toward Israel.

Earlier at the West Bank town of Ramallah, Mr. Obama assured Palestinian Arab leaders he’d get involved in the Middle East conflict quickly, a top Palestinian Arab official said.

In his meeting with the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, Mr. Obama confirmed “that he will be a constructive partner in the peace process” and would not “waste a minute” if elected, an Abbas aide, Saeb Erekat said.

Mr. Obama plunged into the intricacies of the region’s longest-running conflict with a packed schedule of meetings with Israeli and Palestinian Arab leaders.

Donning a Jewish skullcap at Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, he laid a wreath of white chrysanthemums and lisianthus and lit a memorial flame. “Despite this record of monumental tragedy, this ultimately is a place of hope,” he said.

“At a time of great peril and torment, war and strife, we are blessed to have such a powerful reminder of man’s potential for great evil, but also our capacity to rise up from tragedy and remake our world,” he wrote in the visitors’ book.

American tourists who passed by him at the memorial told him, “Remember what you see here,” and he replied, “Yes, I understand, I understand,” Yad Vashem’s director, Avner Shalev, said

Mr. Obama also met with the Israeli Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, and the parliamentary opposition leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, whose Likud Party takes a hard line against the Palestinian Arabs. He was to meet with Prime Minister Olmert in the evening.

Mr. Obama met with Messrs. Barak and Netanyahu at Jerusalem’s posh King David Hotel, where an “Israel for Obama” campaign poster was draped over an armchair in the lobby. The poster included Mr. Obama’s campaign slogan — “Change you can believe in” — in Hebrew.

Mr. Obama left Mr. Abbas’s headquarters without speaking to reporters. But yesterday, he cautioned it is “unrealistic to expect that a U.S. president alone can suddenly snap his fingers and bring about peace in this region.”

His meeting with the Palestinian Arabs stands in contrast to the decision by Republican presidential hopeful Senator McCain to visit only Israel in March, without stopping in the West Bank.

On the road leading to Mr. Abbas’s headquarters today, police were out in full force, standing 10 yards apart and outfitted in full battle regalia, wearing camouflage uniforms, helmets, and bulletproof vests and carrying truncheons and assault rifles.

Mr. Obama arrived in Israel last night from neighboring Jordan and is to leave for Germany early tomorrow.


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