CosmicRocker

Obama's Metastatic Gaffe
Please don't dismiss this because you don't like the author.
I posted this, because he says EXACTLY what I've been saying for months: Obama's " without pre-conditions"
is gonna haunt him, until he completey backs off this disater.
Please make an argument why Krauthammer is wrong.

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, May 23, 2008; Page A17

When the House of Representatives takes up arms against $4 gas by voting 324-84 to sue OPEC, you know that election-year discourse has entered the realm of the surreal. Another unmistakable sign is when a presidential candidate makes a gaffe, then, realizing it is too egregious to take back without suffering humiliation, decides to make it a centerpiece of his foreign policy.

Before the Democratic debate of July 23, Barack Obama had never expounded upon the wisdom of meeting, without precondition, with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bashar al-Assad, Hugo Chávez, Kim Jong Il or the Castro brothers. But in that debate, he was asked about doing exactly that. Unprepared, he said sure -- then got fancy, declaring the Bush administration's refusal to do so not just "ridiculous" but "a disgrace."

After that, there was no going back. So he doubled down. What started as a gaffe became policy. By now, it has become doctrine. Yet it remains today what it was on the day he blurted it out: an absurdity.

Should the president ever meet with enemies? Sometimes, but only after minimal American objectives -- i.e., preconditions -- have been met. The Shanghai communique was largely written long before Richard Nixon ever touched down in China. Yet Obama thinks Nixon to China confirms the wisdom of his willingness to undertake a worldwide freshman-year tyrants tour.

Most of the time you don't negotiate with enemy leaders because there is nothing to negotiate. Does Obama imagine that North Korea, Iran, Syria, Cuba and Venezuela are insufficiently informed about American requirements for improved relations?

There are always contacts through back channels or intermediaries. Iran, for example, has engaged in five years of talks with our closest European allies and the International Atomic Energy Agency, to say nothing of the hundreds of official U.S. statements outlining exactly what we would give them in return for suspending uranium enrichment.

Obama pretends that while he is for such "engagement," the cowboy Republicans oppose it. Another absurdity. No one is debating the need for contacts. The debate is over the stupidity of elevating rogue states and their tyrants, easing their isolation, and increasing their leverage by granting them unconditional meetings with the president of the world's superpower.

Obama cited Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman as presidents who met with enemies. Does he know no history?
Neither Roosevelt nor Truman ever met with any of the leaders of the Axis powers. Obama must be referring to the pictures he's seen of Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta, and Truman and Stalin at Potsdam. Does he not know that at that time Stalin was a wartime ally?

During the subsequent Cold War, Truman never met with Stalin. Nor Mao. Nor Kim Il Sung. Truman was no fool.

Obama cites John Kennedy meeting Nikita Khrushchev as another example of what he wants to emulate. Really? That Vienna summit of a young, inexperienced, untested American president was disastrous, emboldening Khrushchev to push Kennedy on Berlin -- and then nearly fatally in Cuba, leading almost directly to the Cuban missile crisis. Is that the precedent Obama aspires to follow?

A meeting with Ahmadinejad would not just strengthen and vindicate him at home, it would instantly and powerfully ease the mullahs' isolation, inviting other world leaders to follow. And with that would come a flood of commercial contracts, oil deals, diplomatic agreements -- undermining the very sanctions and isolation that Obama says he would employ against Iran.

As every seasoned diplomat knows, the danger of a summit is that it creates enormous pressure for results. And results require mutual concessions. That is why conditions and concessions are worked out in advance, not on the scene.

What concessions does Obama imagine Ahmadinejad will make to him on Iran's nuclear program? And what new concessions will Obama offer? To abandon Lebanon? To recognize Hamas? Or perhaps to squeeze Israel?

Having lashed himself to the ridiculous, unprecedented promise of unconditional presidential negotiations -- and then having compounded the problem by elevating it to a principle -- Obama keeps trying to explain. On Sunday, he declared in Pendleton, Ore., that by Soviet standards Iran and others "don't pose a serious threat to us." (On the contrary. Islamic Iran is dangerously apocalyptic. Soviet Russia was not.) The next day in Billings, Mont.: "I've made it clear for years that the threat from Iran is grave."

That's the very next day, mind you. Such rhetorical flailing has done more than create an intellectual mess. It has given rise to a new political phenomenon: the metastatic gaffe. The one begets another, begets another, begets . . .

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

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Rollerball

Is he saying EXACTLY what you've been saying, or have you been saying EXACTLY what he's been saying? And why does it matter?

I could argue for months that there are alien monsters beaming microwaves into our brains and the only way to prevent it is wear a tin foil hat... and you know what? Somewhere I'd be able to find an article to support that claim.

Pardon me if I don't make an argument for you to misunderstand three or four times where I have to explain 'that's not what I said'... you're too much work to argue with.

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EvilMonkey

Interesting article with no link that I can't seem to find in the MSM. This baby has legs!

You know where I stand on this anyway. The only way you are going to get another four years of "fuck every country except for us" is to elect McCain.

CosmicRocker

Ya. i do know where you stand - at least you debate the issue.

But it's NOT talk/don't talk it's about when/how to talk.

Lower level envoys first, pre-negotiations - you know the drill.

This is from WP. btw. - but similar editorials are in the NYT, and other papers.
I'll try to find them, if it's requested.

I WAS hoping to hear someone defend " no preconditions - meet in the first year" guess no one buys that either anymore.

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Traveling Wilburys (l to r)

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guest1234567

To be fair, I googled this, and this article is just about everywhere. Then I wikied the author and this is what it said.

So the guy may be mostly wrong on this, but he has chops.

guest1234567

C-R,

I try to be fair and relatively impartial, so I'll try to explain that on this one I think you are being just a little too literal. The term "no preconditions" was and is used as opposed to the current policy that we basically use in Korea and Iran, which is "we won't talk until you dismantle your nukes completely." Now that is a major precondition.

The term "no preconditions" is not meant to mean that he'll just show up unannounced for Sunday dinner. Of course there will be lower level diplomats making proper arrangements and those are not preconditions at all.

Edit: And to be fair I too cringed when Obama cited Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman as examples.

Cookie

The esteemed author is dead on about this. Obama is woefully inexperienced in many matters, and if elected, will be the primary policy maker and leader of our nation. It is a frightening thought. But worse than that is his new international play group...they are anything but young, naive, and inexperienced. To quote an old phrase, "they'll take him down to the river and bring him back thirsty."

Say what you want about McCain and Hillary, but they aren't naive and inexperienced.

Part of Obama's problem is he's believing what his supporters (adorers) are saying about him. He's got the big head....

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doctordog is gay

If we elect Obama, we fuck ourselves while we stay at home.

Vicariously I

So you DO want him to get elected. And all this time I thought you didn't want that to happen.

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CosmicRocker

and JFK - another bad example. He's got lots of bad examples.

Yes I understand there has to be preliminary; but don't forget he ALSO promised meetings in the first year.
He is so intent on overthorowing the Bush policy ( as is Hilary )
that he's making rash promises.

I also have to wonder if he understands that each negotiation is a seperate deal.
Some are worthwhile - some not - and some depending on what you can get out of it.

So he's really unclear, or naive or both.
Contrast that to Hillary who jumped on it - she KNEW right away this is bad policy.
he's got some 'spainin' to do.

naw - just ears :-)

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Traveling Wilburys (l to r)

Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, George Harrison, Roy Orbison