MSNBC's Hayes Compares Iran's Ahmadinejad Faction to Bush, 'Neocon Cowboy' 'Inflaming the World'
On Friday's All In show on MSNBC, as host Chris Hayes was
joined by fellow MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow to gush over President Obama
being the first American president since 1979 to speak with an Iranian
president, Hayes at one point drew an analogy between former Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's more radical faction and former
President George W. Bush's "kind of neocon cowboy who liked to go around
the world inflaming the world with rhetoric."
After making the obnoxious link, Hayes then clarified that he did not
intend to suggest that Bush was "morally equivalent" to Ahmadinejad.
Hayes:
I mean, Iran, Iran had their own kind of Barack Obama election in which they threw out the kind of neocon cowboy who liked to go around the world inflaming the world with rhetoric. And this is not to make a moral equivalence between Ahmadinejad and President Bush, but to say that the domestic political considerations of the populace there was that they wanted a new course and they elected someone who gave them that and apparently, supreme leadership is also behind this.
Below is a transcript of relevant portions of the Friday, September 27, All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC:
CHRIS HAYES: Watching this news break over Twitter, and then watching
the President announced it and sitting and observing it, I felt like I
was watching the man that I voted for in 2008, very proudly, who ran an
entire foreign policy campaign about choosing diplomacy over war. A man
who, as President, has been drawing to a close the two wars he
inherited, but also expanding our military activities in a variety of
countries through counterterrorism and drones and special forces.Today, I
saw that candidate from 2008.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Our Iran policy is a complete failure right now
and that's the policy that John McCain is running on. He has nothing to
offer except the naive and irresponsible belief that tough talk from
Washington will somehow cause Iran to give up its nuclear program and
support for terrorism.
I believe we need to use all elements of American power to pressure
Iran, including tough, principled and direct diplomacy. That's what John
F. Kennedy did. That's what Ronald Reagan did when dealing with the
Soviets.
HAYES: The guy who said he would talk with Iran on a campaign trail,
today, talked to Iran. According to a senior administration official,
Iranian President Rouhani wanted to speak with the President on the
phone before leaving New York City.
This after Rouhani reportedly turned down a meeting with the President
in the margins of the United Nations General Assembly earlier this week.
Today, at approximately 2:30 p.m., the two leaders engaged in a, quote,
"cordial" phone call, lasting approximately 15 minutes. A translator
facilitated the call as is common practice as the President made calls
to foreign leaders.
(...)
HAYES: I mean, Iran, Iran had their own kind of Barack Obama election
in which they threw out the kind of neocon cowboy who liked to go around
the world inflaming the world with rhetoric. And this is not to make a
moral equivalence between Ahmadinejad and President Bush, but to say
that the domestic political considerations of the populace there was
that they wanted a new course and they elected someone who gave them
that and apparently, supreme leadership is also behind this.
MADDOW: Yes, I'm with you for now, right?
HAYES: For now, right? So, you also have domestic political considerations inside Iran, which have changed the situation.
MADDOW: And maybe we did influence those with sanctions. I mean,
sanctions ratcheted under the Obama administration in a way that made
them a qualitatively different experience for most regular on the street
Iranians, and maybe that did affect what happened in that election in
what Rouhani says is his mandate, which has allowed him now to have this
call with Obama.
You know, maybe we do have influence, maybe those things work, and
maybe it's mysterious. But what you need to know as an American
government is that we need competent governance. We need people who are
good at diplomacy all the time and working at it even when it seems
hopeless because sometimes, it takes 34 years for that phone call to
happen. But when it happens, you better have done the work along the way
because those opportunities come along very, very rarely.
