Dignity, Honor, and Efficiency in Iraq

Gov. Richardson is in New Hampshire, laying out of his campaign for that state's influential primary. In a recent statement regarding the war in Iraq, he suggested that Congress should take a stronger stand to end the conflict and find peaceful solution.

His Iraq plan takes a variety of regional and global concerns into account, supports the troops currently in the field, and demands a return to maturity and diplomacy on the international stage.

The Manchester Union Leader newspaper puts it this way:

But Richardson said lawmakers "should stop voting on resolutions that mean nothing."

In the first of a two-day New Hampshire campaign swing, Richardson said Bush should "use the lesson he just learned in North Korea," where he won a nuclear weapons agreement by having his administration negotiate directly with the North Korean government.

Richardson said a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq should be used as "leverage" for diplomacy. The United States should try to bring Iran, Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia into negotiations on "security and reconstruction."

At the same time, he said, the United States should convene a "reconciliation conference" in Iraq to include the Sunnis, the Shiia and the Kurds.


According to an Associated Press story:

"He finally used diplomacy and it works," Richardson said on the first day of a two-day visit to the early voting state of New Hampshire. "My hope is that he uses that lesson … to talk to Syria about Hezbollah and Iraq, and that he talks to Iran about getting out of Iraq and stop their meddling there.

"I believe that a good concrete dialogue with those two countries with the U.S. having tough smart positions could achieve something," the New Mexico governor said during a telephone interview with The Associated Press...

"I believe that would at least give Iraq a chance to keep itself together and not be overrun by a sectarian conflict," he said.