Harry’s Place

No, there is not.

In fact I think it’s a mistake to pay too much attention to what any candidate says about foreign policy during a campaign.
Yup. Spoken like a true Obamaphile.

Is there a significant moral difference between between this and a face-to-face meeting between Bush and the Sudanese leader?

Hmm. Let’s see.

I am the leader of a third-world hellhole. I’m looking around for some domestic and international thread (Whew! This tyranny stuff is trickier than you think!) Hmm. What do I do?

I know! I’ll deliver an aggresive, ugly harangue to the General Assembly (or Christiane Amanpour, if I can get her.) If I make enough noise, cause enough trouble, I’ll get my photo taken with President Obama!

Oops! should read: “looking around for some domestic and international CRED….”

Obama also said countries that deal with the Farc terrorist group should be isolated, shortly after saying he will meet Chavez. Now he says Ahmadenijad isn’t the real leader of Iran so he doesn’t have to meet him after all. He’s all over the place.

Robert Novac made the point that Obama has now turned this mistake in that debate into a doctrine, rather than just admit he was wrong. There is truth to that.

If he become president I expect Obama will be exchanging letters with Hamas and Hezbollah quite often.

Well, mesquito, I suspect that if Obama meets al-Bashir, he will speak to him a lot more harshly than Bush or Powell or Rice ever have.

And I suspect his meetings with Saudi King Abdullah will be less chummy than this. I’d go so far as to place a wager on no sword dancing without preconditions.

Gene, I’m surprised you don’t refer to or link Matthew Inglesias’ Atlantic piece. The short version: Obama’s foreign policy is the ongoing rationalization of whatever baloney pops out of his mouth from one day to the next.

Oops again. I meant “Yglesias”.

The thing about Bush is, he is only friendly with a dictator if he thinks it’s in America’s interests. He’s not chummy with America’s enemies.

Well, mesquito, I suspect that if Obama meets al-Bashir, he will speak to him a lot more harshly than Bush or Powell or Rice ever have.

Hmmm, maybe, but when he gets in power things, as you say, it might not quite turnout like that. His willingness to “listen” to other countries may mean that he wants a more “equal relationship” rather than the “hectoring” of Bush, which has a funny way of ending up being appeasement.

The thing about Bush is, he is only friendly with a dictator if he thinks it’s in America’s interests. He’s not chummy with America’s enemies.

With friends like these…

Obama, May 19. Iran threat is “tiny”:

Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us, and yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying we’re going to wipe you off the planet.

Obama, May 20. Iran threat is “grave”:

So, I’ve made it clear for years that the threat from Iran is grave.

Rationalize away, Gene.

mesquito, yes, I would say Obama contradicted himself. Not the first time or the last time he or McCain or Bush have done so or will do so.

But it’s a little hard to engage with you as you rarely respond directly to my points (except very selectively), and mostly resort to “so’s your old man” retorts and whatabouttery.

This may be good partisan tactics, but it doesn’t make for good discussion or serious debate.

But it’s a little hard to engage with you as you rarely respond directly to my points (except very selectively), and mostly resort to “so’s your old man” retorts and whatabouttery.

Damn, Gene.

I gave you:

a) a reason why personal summitry without precondidtions introduces bad incentives to bad people.
b) I pointed to an article by a left-wing journalist that points to a vacuousness at the core of Obama’s foreign policy (The Gaffe That Became A Doctrine, we’ll call it.)
c) I pointed to an appalling inconsistancy from Obama concerning the threat from Iran.

In return, you send me links about Our Friends The Saudis and Bush’s sword dancing. Now I don’t pretend that the Saudis are not a huge pain in the ass. I never have. And I don’t think they will cease being so on January 20, 2009. But I think you are accusing me of precisely what you are all about today.

I’m happy Obama is walking back from his “no preconditions” buncombe. It shows that someone around had the wit to notice the red flares Biden and Richardson were launching from over the horizon.

BTW: As to Biden and Richardson, if the Democrats were grown-up, serious and sane, one of those two would be the nominee.

Gene:

McCain has repeated his invitation to Obama to join him on a visit to Iraq. Your thought?

a) a reason why personal summitry without precondidtions introduces bad incentives to bad people.

Leaving aside the precise meaning of “without precondidtions,” Bush’s current way of dealing with al-Bashir may mean the dictator doesn’t get a free photo op, but it sure hasn’t helped the people of Darfur. I can’t imagine that a tough face-to-face meeting with Obama would make things any worse.

b) I pointed to an article by a left-wing journalist that points to a vacuousness at the core of Obama’s foreign policy (The Gaffe That Became A Doctrine, we’ll call it.)

My impression from the article is that Yglesias doesn’t think there’s anything vacuous about it.

c) I pointed to an appalling inconsistancy from Obama concerning the threat from Iran.

I conceded that, and assume you are equally appalled by the inconsistencies of Bush and McCain.

McCain has repeated his invitation to Obama to join him on a visit to Iraq. Your thought?

I think it would turn into a media circus rather than a serious look at conditions on the ground.

“Is there a significant moral difference between between this and a face-to-face meeting between Bush and the Sudanese leader? At which point are we slicing differences a little too thin?”

Well Bush has not actually carried out a presidential visit to Sudan has he?

I think you will find that McCains point was that a Presidential visit was akin to legitimizing these regimes. How many people felt a rush of bile watching Sarkozy shake hands with Ghadaffi, but that was because he had renounced his weapons of mass destruction, released those nurses and that was his reward.

Obama has not got a clue.

I think it would turn into a media circus rather than a serious look at conditions on the ground.

I think it also bullds a huge honking neon sign over the fact that Obama isn’t much interested in conditions on the ground.

I think it also bullds a huge honking neon sign over the fact that Obama isn’t much interested in conditions on the ground.

Or indeed the fact that Obama will not meet with non-partisan Veterans groupings either, but has all the time in the world for moonbats of all stripes.

“There’s no reason why we would necessarily meet with Ahmadinejad before we know that he was actually in power. He’s not the most powerful person in Iran,” Obama told reporters.

Under Iran’s system of clerical rule, the Islamic Republic’s religious establishment has final say in all state matters.

- You can just imagine (apostate Muslim) Obama having a meeting with Grand Ayatollah Khamenei over Iran’s nuclear project. Priceless.

(In that vein of thought - can anyone actually advise if al-Sistani has bothered to meet with any US representative concerning the occupation of his own country?)

The Saudis, who contributed 15 out of the 19 attackers, on 9/11, not to mention the bulk of the suicide bombers in Iraq as well as Osama bin Laden, are our Friends? Shoot, Saudi Arabia was the country we should have invaded, instead of Iraq, if we were really going after the ones responsible for 9/11. Of course, we were not. Instead we were going to shield the ones responsible for the deaths of 3,000 Americans by invading Iraq instead. This desire to protect the Saudis from the consequences 0f 9/11 along with the desire to grab Iraq’s oil and give Haliburton unlimited profits were the real reasons Bush invaded Iraq.

Mesquito, are you claiming that Iran, which does not yet have a single nuclear weapon is as big a threat to the US as the Soviet Union was during the Cold War when it had thousands of nukes?

Oh, if we went to talk about changing one’s stance. How about McCain going from we can stay in Iraq for a hundred years to withdrawing all the US troops from Iraq in four years. Why are four years are now considered to be strong while Obama’s two years is cut and run? Seems like McCain is triming his sails to catch the popular wind the same as Obama.

McCain & Obama go together on a trip to Iraq: What will they do there? Make a tour of some carefully secured marketplace while wearing bullet proof vests?!

Mesquito, are you claiming that Iran, which does not yet have a single nuclear weapon is as big a threat to the US as the Soviet Union was during the Cold War when it had thousands of nukes?

If you go back and read what I wrote, you’ll relaize that I said nothing about the Iranian threat. It may be “grave” or it may be “tiny.” I think it is somewhere in between. But Obama is saying it is both.

Dennis Ross wrote an interesting piece on when it’s appropriate to negotiate:

“A basic tool of statecraft, negotiations are used in every facet of foreign policy: to prevent conflict, to conclude hot or cold wars, to reconcile with former enemies, to build coalitions against possible aggressors, to mobilize donor efforts for reconstruction after conflicts or natural disasters, to forge or alter trade agreements, to persuade others to transform their behavior, and so on.

…

“That does not mean, however, that we should talk in any and all circumstances. At a minimum, we need to draw a basic distinction between states and nonstate actors. I say this as someone who has negotiated with both.

“Nation states typically have a certain standing on the world stage. When we choose not to talk to them, as the Bush administration has done on Iran, and did for a long time on North Korea, we are not eroding their legitimacy in the eyes of the international community. Instead, we tend to make our unwillingness to talk the issue. We should want their egregious behaviors to be the focal point internationally, not our rejection of negotiations.

“For nonstate actors like Hamas and Hezbollah, the circumstances are different. They don’t have standing internationally. They seek legitimacy on the world stage to prove the “inevitability” of their agenda and their goals. For me, it was a given that Hamas would say, as its spokesmen quickly did, that Jimmy Carter’s meetings with its leaders lent greater “legitimacy” to the group.

“If achieving legitimacy is so important to them — if proving that they don’t need to adjust to the world, but proving that the world must adjust to them is such a central aim of theirs — then it is essential that they not get something for nothing. They should be required to meet certain conditions before we negotiate with them.

…

“Moreover, our willingness to talk, paradoxically, makes it easier to adopt a tougher policy toward Iran if the Iranians are nonresponsive. No one can accuse us of seeking only a military answer when we demonstrate that we are prepared to engage in good-faith negotiations.

“In all likelihood, whoever is president next year will enter direct talks with Iran: Sen. McCain because he knows he cannot use force against this regime if he has not shown the American public that he did everything he could to change Iranian behavior short of military action; and Sens. Obama or Clinton because they believe that greater leverage can be exerted on Iran by direct negotiations.

…

“Ultimately, we have to ask ourselves the following question. Why, in a world in which our power is not unlimited and in which our standing and credibility have declined, would we want to deny ourselves one of the tools available for promoting and protecting our interests around the globe?

“If there is a difference between the presidential candidates on who we should be negotiating with and how we should approach those negotiations, let them explain those differences. Their explanations will reveal much about their approach to foreign policy. ”

http://www.thewashingtoninstitute.org/templateC06.php?CID=1155

Regards,

Inna

Everyone has so many personal oars in the water here I’m beginning to think Harry’s should be re-named the “Oar House.”

call me naive, but I’ve always wondered what the advantages are of “no talks diplomacy”. Is meeting the President some kind of special prize? Are dictators worldwide like celebrity stalkers? “Finally, my plan to meet Dubya will come to fruition, muahahahaha”.Have they all got little shrines with their own head in place of the First Lady?

Thanks, Inna, that Dennis Ross article was a very interesting one. I think Ross has got it correct about when to negotiate and when not to negotiate.