NEWSWEEK: Ex-Bush Official Says McCain is Wrong on Negotiating With Iran and Other Adversaries

[maddezmom]

NEW YORK, Oct. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Nicholas Burns, former United Statesunder-secretary of state for political affairs, writes in the current issue ofNewsweek that John McCain is wrong to attack Barack Obama for his willingnessto sit down with America's foes. "As Americans learned all too dramaticallyon 9/11 and again during the financial crisis this autumn, we inhabit arapidly integrating planet where dangers can strike at any time and from greatdistances. And when others -- China, India, Brazil -- are rising to sharepower in the world with us, America needs to spend more time, not less,talking and listening to friends and foes alike," he writes in the November 3issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, October 27). Burns believes that oneof America's greatest but often-neglected strengths is our diplomatic power,and suggests that the next administration should look for opportunities totalk in Iran, Syria, and eventually even Afghanistan.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081026/NYSU007 )
http://www.ibtimes.com/prnews/20081026/ny-nwswk-iran-help.htm


We Should Talk to Our Enemies
By Nicholas Burns | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Oct 25, 2008
From the Editors (1) Afghanistan: The Taliban is a Many Headed Monster See All Recommended (6) World Politicians Helped, Hurt By Economic Crisis Madame Vp? Afghanistan: The Taliban is a Many Headed Monster Letters to the Editor: Russia's Power Play Georgia's Saakashvili on U.S. Support and Russia Hamid Karzai on Afghanistan's Future See All Topics (6) Barack Obama John McCain Iran Middle East Afghanistan China See All
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One of the sharpest and most telling differences on foreign policy between Barack Obama and John McCain is whether the United States should talk to difficult and disreputable leaders like Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Venezuela's Hugo Chávez. In each of the three presidential debates, McCain belittled Obama as naive for arguing that America should be willing to negotiate with such adversaries. In the vice presidential debate, Sarah Palin went even further, accusing Obama of "bad judgment … that is dangerous," an ironic charge given her own very modest foreign-policy credentials.

Are McCain and Palin correct that America should stonewall its foes? I lived this issue for 27 years as a career diplomat, serving both Republican and Democratic administrations. Maybe that's why I've been struggling to find the real wisdom and logic in this Republican assault against Obama. I'll bet that a poll of senior diplomats who have served presidents from Carter to Bush would reveal an overwhelming majority who agree with the following position: of course we should talk to difficult adversaries—when it is in our interest and at a time of our choosing.

The more challenging and pertinent question, especially for the McCain-Palin ticket, is the reverse: Is it really smart to declare we will never talk to such leaders? Is it really in our long-term national interest to shut ourselves off from one of the most important and powerful states in the Middle East—Iran—or one of our major suppliers of oil, Venezuela?

During the five decades of the cold war, when Americans had a more Manichaean view of the world, we did, from time to time, cut off relations with particularly odious leaders such as North Korea's Kim Il Sung or Albania's bloodthirsty and maniacal strongman, Enver Hoxha. But for the most part even our most ardent cold-war presidents—Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, none of whom was often accused of being weak or naive—decided that sitting down with our adversaries made good sense for America. They all talked to Soviet leaders—men vastly more threatening to America's survival than Ahmadinejad or Chávez are now. JFK negotiated a nuclear Test-Ban Treaty with his mortal adversary, Nikita Khrushchev, just one year after the two narrowly avoided a nuclear holocaust during the Cuban missile crisis. Perhaps more dramatically, Nixon, the greatest anticommunist crusader of his time, went to China in 1972 to repair a more than 20-year rupture with Mao Zedong that he believed no longer worked for America.

more:http://www.newsweek.com/id/165650

[BearSquirrel2]

1. As I see it, he's in denial ...

Look, Bush tried the "our way or the high way" with North Korea. They were told to fuck off. Yes, the negotiations HAD preconditions and it was KOREAS preconditions. Take us off the terrorist list, and we'll let you back it.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's an excellent deal. But you see this pattern of negotiation all over the place. Quadafi, money for support. ALL the coalition nations ... money for a few troops. George really drives a hard bargain ... heh.

And BTW, we all know how successful the Cuban stiffarm has been. Somehow these boneheads keep convincing themselves that the new Cuban revolution is next year and it will be NEVER if we lowered are heads to Cuba low enough to build an embassy and send an ambassador.