McCain: If Ahmadinejad behaved more like Gadhafi, I’d talk with him

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said on ABC’s “This Week” that if Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad behaved more like Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi, he’d be happy to sit down and chat with the Iranian leader.

McCain, on a congressional trip with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), visited Libya last weekend. “Late evening with Col. Qadhafi at his ‘ranch’ in Libya – interesting meeting with an interesting man,” McCain tweeted.

When pressed by George Stephanopoulos, McCain said the delegation did bring up the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset Mohamed al-Megrahi, which would occur days later. “We said we thought it would be a grave mistake to give this individual a hero’s welcome,” McCain said. That, of course, is just what happened with al-Megrahi touched down in Tripoli, infuriating FBI Director Robert Mueller, the White House and many others.

But McCain noted that Gadhafi’s regime, which is “dictatorial, totalitarian in every way and very cruel,” gave up its weapons of mass destruction.

“If Ahmadinejad did that tomorrow, I’d be happy to sit down and talk with Ahmadinejad,” McCain said, alluding to the nuclear program that Iran still claims is just for energy purposes.