BlogWonks

In last evening’s presidential debate, Barack Obama tried to score points by claiming that Henry Kissinger, one of McCain’s foreign policy advisors, was in favor of having the President of the United States sit down without preconditions with the President of Iran. Barack Obama is in favor of this himself, and this could’ve have been fairly embarassing for McCain. Sadly for Obama it turns out that Henry Kissinger supports McCain’s position NOT to have presidential level meetings with Iran  without preconditions.

ABC News’ Kirit Radia Reports: Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger came to the defense of longtime friend Sen. John McCain following Friday’s presidential debate saying he “would not recommend the next President of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the Presidential level.”

“Senator McCain is right. I would not recommend the next President of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the Presidential level. My views on this issue are entirely compatible with the views of my friend Senator John McCain. We do not agree on everything, but we do agree that any negotiations with Iran must be geared to reality,” Kissinger said in statement issued by the McCain campaign.

During the debate, Obama pointed to Kissinger to defend his position because the former secretary of state supports direct talks with high-level Iranians without preconditions. Kissinger does not, however, support the U.S. president personally engaging in those talks, a point which McCain sought to drive home during the debate.

I’ll cut Obama some slack, and say that Obama just didn’t really understand Kissinger’s position on this issue, rather than that he was telling another lie and trying to get away with it. Obama did not understand many foreign policy issues last evening, so this is just one more example of that.