Joe Biden says 'go ahead, start WWIII'

Vice President Biden does seem to have a way with words.

Perhaps he has forgotten that in invasion of Kuwait occurred, in part, because Iraq thought America was ok with the attack as a result of ill chosen language of an Ambassador?

Regardless, I always think if something can be explained as stupidity or conspiracy, stupidity is more likely. And here I suspect Biden was just babbling rather that sending a message.

(By the way, seeing Biden's actions makes me appreciate the bland meaningless verbiage we usually hear -- it's meaningless for a reason -- to avoid accidentally making new public policy)

Biden Suggests U.S. Not Standing in Israel's Way on Iran

By BRIAN KNOWLTON
NYT Published: July 06, 2009

WASHINGTON - Plunging squarely into one of the most sensitive issues in the Middle East, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. suggested on Sunday that the United States would not stand in the way of Israeli military action aimed at the Iranian nuclear program.

The United States, Mr. Biden said in an interview broadcast on ABC's "This Week," "cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do."

"Israel can determine for itself - it's a sovereign nation - what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else," he said, in an interview taped in Baghdad at the end of a visit there.

...

Mr. Biden's comments came at a particularly sensitive time, amid the continuing tumult over the disputed Iranian elections, and seemed to risk handing a besieged President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a new tool with which to fan nationalist sentiments in Iran.

What was not immediately clear was whether Mr. Biden, who has a long-standing reputation for speaking volubly - and sometimes going too far in the heat of the moment - was sending an officially sanctioned message.
James Morton
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