Last week Rudy Giuliani put forward his twelve top priorities without mentioning Iraq. As for the country’s most urgent foreign policy problem, here’s a remarkable comment from a man who would presume to lead this country:
“Iraq may get better; Iraq may get worse. We may be successful in Iraq; we may not be. I don’t know the answer to that. That’s in the hands of other people.”
How is that Giuliani could fail to have an opinion on how to deal with the number one issue in this election? As Newsday reported yesterday, he didn’t feel like doing do his homework:
WASHINGTON — Rudolph Giuliani’s membership on an elite Iraq study panel came to an abrupt end last spring after he failed to show up for a single official meeting of the group, causing the panel’s top Republican to give him a stark choice: either attend the meetings or quit, several sources said.
Giuliani left the Iraq Study Group last May after just two months, walking away from a chance to make up for his lack of foreign policy credentials on the top issue in the 2008 race, the Iraq war.
He cited “previous time commitments” in a letter explaining his decision to quit, and a look at his schedule suggests why — the sessions at times conflicted with Giuliani’s lucrative speaking tour that garnered him $11.4 million in 14 months.
So when Giuliani said that Iraq is “in the hands of other people,” he didn’t mention that he was asked to serve with those people in tackling this enormously important task, and couldn’t be bothered to show up.
Had he done his homework (or his duty to his country), Rudy Giuliani might have actually arrived at a useful opinion on what to do about Iraq. Instead he expects voters to be so impressed with his jutting jaw and tough guy persona that we won’t notice that he isn’t telling us how he would fix the mess in Iraq.