[...] on Iran; O’s oblig­a­tory press con­fer­ence; Writer Chick Talks: Bama in a Box; Flop­ping Aces: Obama “gets tough”… firmly defend­ing his wuss response to Iran June 23, 2009 – [...]

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Your problem, triz, is associating everything “sharia” with “undemocratic”. I’m sure Britian, who has a parallel Sharia judicial system would take issue with your misinterpretation. Additionally, Saudi is a monarchy who defers their code and laws to Sharia law. This differs somewhat from a pure theocracy, as in Iran.

“Muslim attitudes” were not a problem with the US/Israeli negotiations because Egypt and Jordan are not Iran and the Iranian leadership. Nor were they dealing with jihad groups and official terrorists (Hamas), but Fatah and Abbas.

A CIC has every right in the world to pursue the wrong path. And we can all rest assured Obama has every intention of taking us on the wrong path.

Negotiation with leadership that refuses to budge of evolve is a waste of time. China has evolved economically, tho not on human rights. Soviets abandoned communism and their empirical quest. Iran hasn’t budged one bit on Israel, or their enrichment program. Why should they? Obama’s busy trying to set them up with nuke power and proxy enrichment.

Your “bingo” confirms that you, also, recognize that negotiating with Iran serves no purpose.

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What’s this “we” stuff

Your outrage and insistence that the US unquestionably stands behind the force of democracy. If you’re not even willing to concede that the Kingdom is un-democratic then let’s stop pulling teeth over this. Perhaps your intent was to demonstrate the fruitlessness of negotiation by example

Don’t know much about the Muslim attitudes INRE negotiations, do you?

This is arm-chair sociology; “Muslim attitudes” were not a problem during US/Israeli negotiation with Egypt and Jordan.

Who cares? Reagan did not see it as a strategic blunder, and he was correct

Wonderful, and Obama does not see engagement as a strategic blunder, so your claims to the contrary can be discounted just as history has discounted those of the 80′s neo-cons?

no leader can shake hands with Iran on a deal and walk away without blood on their own hands

So the Iranian violence is worse than Tienanmen and the Soviet regime? We seem to have walked away fine with those deals. For all your moral bluster, it has no basis in previous successful US foreign policy; your main contention is simply that you think negotiation is a waste of time.

If you’d pay attention, you’d know the int’l community has been engaging Iran in nuke talks all along, absent the US. And that’s accomplished what?

Bingo.

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You can persist against the “most repressive” statement, but a sharia government is repressive and un-democratic by definition, and yet we have no problems negotiating with them. So we can skip the moral outrage when Obama proposes talking with Iran.

What’s this “we” stuff, kemosabi? Speak for yourself and your own moral outrage. Just because you feel that way, the rest of the world doesn’t have to, nor does it make you correct. It is your opinion… period. And a very narrow-minded one at that.

Reagan went into the negotiations with certain internal positions that he was not willing to back down on, he did not force Gorbachev to make concessions before these negotiations were held like Bush had done with Iran.

Reagan showed up with a stacked deck and knew Gorbachev/Russia had to make the concessions, or bankrupt their nation. Bush had no such stacked deck, and neither does Obama. Bush just recognized a waste of time. If you’d pay attention, you’d know the int’l community has been engaging Iran in nuke talks all along, absent the US. And that’s accomplished what?

…. an agreement to negotiate is not an agreement to appease.

Spoken like a true, uneducated westerner. Don’t know much about the Muslim attitudes INRE negotiations, do you? Hint… go back thru Pakistan’s history with the Taliban and their militant factions and you’ll get clue. The short of it? Sign of weakness, and is disregarded. Promise and agree all you want. It is not honored, and the appeaser is dishonored. You view the enemy as if they were western in their culture and belief. Which is why you’re not in charge of diplomacy and foreign affairs.

INRE Reagan, I never argued that this was a concession, but that it was a compromise.

A compromise is when you yield some of what you want. Considering that Reagan’s goal was both nations reducing nuke capability, it was not a compromise. He got exactly what he walked in there to get… zero option in 1986, and SDI still a demand. The INF came one year after. All done in two years since they first sat down at the table in 1985.

In hind-sight, it was one that was beneficial to the US, but at the time many saw it as a strategic blunder

Who cares? Reagan did not see it as a strategic blunder, and he was correct. You will always have advisors and pundits that dissent. Why do I care what Krauthammer said at the time? I agree with him sometimes, and others not. He is not the guiding light for my opinions and analyses.

Likewise, Obama can work towards a compromise that benefits the US, especially now that Iran is internally unstable.

The big Zero sealed his fate on Iran with his wishy washy approach. He demonstrated no convictions for freedom and value for human rights until the rest of Europe led the way. By not supporting the rights of the supporters (without actually supporting either scumbag candidate), an opportunity was lost. Now that it’s known thru the world that the current instilled regime is illegitimate, and watched their violent crowd control, no leader can shake hands with Iran on a deal and walk away without blood on their own hands. Obama’s lost… just not figured it out yet.

BTW, as I pointed out, Reagan did not “compromise” since he went into the agreement demanding both the US and USSR reduce arms. You will note the only “compromise” Obama is suggesting is on behalf of Israel… which he has no right to promise.

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@trizzlor:

Yep, it sounds familiar, confirms what D’Souza was saying in his book. Reagan had all kinds of critics, they turned out to be wrong and then the wall went down.

My daughter has a little tiny piece of that wall and a photo of the dismanteling of it that she had made into a poster. Ahh, memories.

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You still place Saudi in a category I don’t.

You can persist against the “most repressive” statement, but a sharia government is repressive and un-democratic by definition, and yet we have no problems negotiating with them. So we can skip the moral outrage when Obama proposes talking with Iran.

Reagan’s preparations of superior arms and thwarted Soviet inroads to enlarging empire led to enforceable preconditions

This kind of parsing is pure sophism – the preconditions we’re talking about are enforced against the other party, not yourself, prior to negotiations. Reagan went into the negotiations with certain internal positions that he was not willing to back down on, he did not force Gorbachev to make concessions before these negotiations were held like Bush had done with Iran. Obama, too has emphasized that there are certain issues which he will not change, that he’s not going to Iran with potentially endless appeasement. If you want to call that preconditions I won’t argue over the syntax. You act like he’s going to talk with Iran and come back with Michelle in a burka – an agreement to negotiate is not an agreement to appease.

INRE Reagan, I never argued that this was a concession, but that it was a compromise. In hind-sight, it was one that was beneficial to the US, but at the time many saw it as a strategic blunder (my link to Krauthammer had him eagerly anticipating doomsday, for example). Likewise, Obama can work towards a compromise that benefits the US, especially now that Iran is internally unstable. The specifics are a whole separate debate, but we do have some leverage in working multi-laterally with Europe, Russia, and the Saudis (more at BICOM, and CFR then and now). As with Reagan, we do not know for sure if these compromises can be negotiated, but we must stop letting Iran effectively dictate the terms of the debate by expecting preconditions before even getting to the table.

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A “bi-lateral move”? You think this was a US concession? News flash… Reagan’s goal was for both superpowers to reduce nuclear stockpiles. His words to Gorbachev?

‘We won’t stand by and let you maintain weapon superiority over us, We can agree to reduce arms, or we can continue the arms race, which I think you know you can’t win.’

That is a man standing firm on preconditions and conditions. It was not a concession, but part of his negotiations all along.

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Btw, let’s not pretend that the zero option was a forceful maneuver – it was a bi-lateral move for disarmament, including many strategic positions in Europe. Read The Hammer’s response on that point as well (and I’m mostly pointing this out because I just found that you can search newspaper archives on Google; 80′s Krauthammer alone is worth all the effort that must’ve gone in to this – why do these dreadful pundits still have credibility?).

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Hard to be “back” to a preconditions v preparations” argument since we’ve never been there, triz. I’ll simplify yet one more time… Reagan’s preparations of superior arms and thwarted Soviet inroads to enlarging empire led to enforceable preconditions… ala zero option and SDI is non-negotiable. The Soviets were well aware that Reagan would be coming in with arms discussions and wouldn’t be budging.

Iran’s preconditions not only include enrichment, but recognizing Israel. If they have no intent to move on either point, any negotiation is moot, and Obama has no bag of tricks in preparations to change their mind.

You still place Saudi in a category I don’t. Also moot to drag out that argument. Just because you believe they are the “most repressive” regime doesn’t make it true. Done with you there.

Failed negotiations leading to future successes? Perhaps. But not with a current regime that won’t budge unless preparations are done to corner them. Negotiating with Arafat was an utter waste of time. It did not lead to future successes. Only when Abbas came to power was that door opened. The same applies to Iran. Unless there is a regime change, or additional leverage gained, it’s a vicious circle in Dante’s levels of Hell.

Regardless, you may not believe that Obama has done the necessary preparations in this case, as Kraut and Buckley did with Reagan, but his high-level approach to diplomacy is certainly no departure from how we’ve dealt with difficult despots in the past.

Your concept of “high-level approach to diplomacy” actually translates into what constitutes a moral equivalency approach. Empty as the Zero suit himself, and bears no resemblence to any one save da Jimmah Carter himself. Dependence upon moral equivalene as leverage falls on deaf ears with the likes of the Ayatolla, Ahmadinejad, Hamas and Hezbollah. Probably because they’re laughing too loudly at the Eunuch in Chief.

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Inevitably we’re back to the “preconditions vs. preparations” argument. Preconditions are something you enforce on the opposite party before allowing them to negotiate (and in a way let them control the debate); preparations are something enforce on yourself to establish leverage with which to negotiate. Obviously telling Iran that we won’t talk to them until they stop enriching uranium is not the same as developing missile defense before we talk with the Soviets. So have true preconditions ever worked? History showed that Reagan had done the necessary preparations to have strong leverage, though many of the people who disagreed with him then repeat the same complaint with respect to Iran.

So what do we have: It’s perfectly reasonable to negotiate and ally yourself with an internally repressive or un-democratic state (like Saudi Arabia) as long as we share external common interests that are benefited; It’s also perfectly reasonable to engage with enemy states as long as we have the proper leverage – in fact, even failed negotiations (as was Reagan’s first summit) are useful to open lines of communication and size-up the needs of the enemy. Essentially what you’re saying is “negotiations are good when they work“.

Iran is obviously different from the Soviet Union, and our openings for leverage are much smaller, but we’ve been playing this preconditions game for decades now – either Bush’s silent preparations are enough and it’s time to meet or they aren’t working and it’s time to meet. Regardless, you may not believe that Obama has done the necessary preparations in this case, as Kraut and Buckley did with Reagan, but his high-level approach to diplomacy is certainly no departure from how we’ve dealt with difficult despots in the past.

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