I haven’t made an argument. You’ve apparently confused me with someone else.
Ah…apologies then. I misunderheard you.
-XT
Ain’t nothin’ but a thang.
Well then for starters, I’m not wrong. Of course I can’t call for secret talks knowing that they’re not already happening (although it’s no secret that we’re talking with North Korea). But why am I first hearing about this on the SDMB whereas countless hours of debate and analysis in the MSM and the campaign trail amount to, “Talk to Iran? Are you mad?”
Moving along, is there any serious refutation of the claims made in the American Prospect article that I linked to, that the US spurned Iran’s offer of help?
And part of what I’m saying is that the president should not have referred to Iran as part of the “Axis of Evil”. We need to be very deft in what we say to them in private arm-twisting sessions vs how we denounce in the international media. We could have threatened to make a huge stink about their support for terrorist groups, but by prematurely raising the stakes and publicly denouncing them as wholly evil and bent on nuclear war–and therefore must be destroyed–we put their back up against the wall so that defiance, not cooperation, was the inevitable result.
There’s a thin line between shaming and angering–especially with Muslims. We need to get better at that game.
People fail to understand a nuke isn’t for destruction it’s a tool and North Korea set the precident.
North Korea has a nuke and so now we can’t attack it we must negotiate and give it what it wants. North Korea isn’t dumb their nukes couldn’t do much damage to the USA, even if they could deliver one.
The issue is while it couldn’t do a crippling blow and the nuke would allow the USA to nuke North Korea back destroying it totally, it allows North Korea to thumb it’s nose and say “OK world give us what we want.”
That is a huge deal, Iran wants that. Iran doesn’t really want to take on Israel nor the USA they want that freedom to thumb their nose at the world and demand and get things.
Well, I’m glad you cleared that up then. 
Out of curiosity…did I say you were wrong somewhere?
I’m not sure what you are getting at here. There are certainly ongoing talks in Iran and the US is certainly part of them. As for North Korea, there are ongoing talks there to, though mostly between NK, SK and China (and I think Japan is also involved)…but the US is also involved, at least at a low level. It wouldn’t be surprising if the US were involved in some secret talks as well.
Well…again, I’m unsure what they mean by that. Are they talking about direct, unilateral talks between the US and Iran (or NK)? Are they talking about the US president going for direct talks IN Iran (or NK)…or having their president/dictator come here or something along those lines? In the case of Iran it’s the Euro’s who are taking the lead in the talks…because they are the ‘good cop’. In the case of NK it’s the Chinese taking (or supposedly taking the lead) because they are the ‘good cop’…them and SK/Japan.
Well, we refused it…so it would depend on how you are spinning the word ‘spurned’ exactly. We didn’t throw it in their face or spit on it or something like that…simply chose not to accept it. Is there any reason why, considering the relationship between the US and Iran for the last few decades we SHOULD have simply accepted their ‘offer of help’…especially considering the political realities of such an offer (IOW, the offer itself was politically motivated)? I don’t see why we should have but if you have an argument lets hear it.
Well…I’m neutral about this one. On the one hand I think that Iran and it’s regime has pretty much made it’s own bed wrt how it is perceived in the region. They have repeatedly broken their NPT agreements, they have supported external terrorist organizations, etc etc. There own rhetoric toward us has been a bit more heated than simply calling them the ‘Axis of Evil’. On the other hand we don’t need to sink to that kind of rhetoric. And our lovely president wouldn’t know tact if it stood up and bit him on the ass.
Well, I don’t think calling them ‘Axis of Evil’ or not would make that much difference to be honest. The relationship between the US and Iran has to much history for that. I think what we are doing is the best play we have…which is have the Euro’s (and nations like Russia and China, in theory at least) hold out the hand of reason and dangle goodies in front of them to get them to play right…while we hold the hammer over their heads in case they fuck up (in theory at least…of couse atm it’s a hammer made of feathers, and they probably know that, but what the hell).
I don’t really think in practical terms either way would have made much difference to our relationship with Iran or getting Iran to work and play nice with others in the region. I don’t think they see rhetoric the same way as we do in any case…just based on how THEY throw around the rhetorical heavy hammers in every speech.
-XT
Update: IAEA inspectors to visit Syria to investigate allegations that Syria was building a nuclear reactor at the site the Israelis bombed in September.
From Democracy Now! (FWIW – original source for story not cited and my google-fu is not strong today):
I’m no diplomat, but I don’t think any negotiation worth the name is supposed to be preconditioned on one party’s total capitulation on the point to be negotiated.
Iran is NOT Hitler’s Germany ca. 1938. Iran is almost bankrupt, its people (especially the young, university educated people) are fed up with the theocracy. The working class in Iran wants NOTHING to do with conflict and war. Ahmadinejad is posturing, hoping to prop himself up. The USA portrays IRAN as the 'axis of evil"-actually, iran is only too conscious of what might happen (should it be involved in another war)-it would likely break apart.
Paying attention to this “braying ass” (Ahmadinejad) is the worst thing we can do-it gives him SOME credibility. ignore him, and he’s toast!
You don’t see why we need help in fighting terrorism? You don’t see why an offer of Iranian help followed by us accepting it would have been a step toward improving our relationship? You don’t see how an improved realtionship with Iran would help reduce the threat level?
You know how a weapon is either offensive or defensive, depending on which end you’re looking at?
The issue is, how to get Iran to improve it’s behavior. We know that threatening them only redoubles their determination to defy us. After all, appeasement cuts both ways. And you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
Of course, you catch even more with bullshit! 
I don’t see how, considering our history with Iran, that anything we WOULD do would have any tangible effect on fighting terrorism…or even on improving our relationship with the current administration in Iran. With or without that speech, with our without accepting aid from Iran, we would still be at fundamental logger heads with them. I don’t see them giving up their support of Hamas or the PLO for instance, with our without the Axis of Evil speech…with or without the acceptance of aid. I think we’d still be having the same fundamental differences with them because their goals are fundamentally different than ours our wrt the ME…and that isn’t going to change whether you ratchet down the rhetoric (on both sides) or not.
This isn’t to say that Bush’s speech was well thought out or necessary, mind…the guy is an idiot and it was a pretty idiotic thing to say IMHO. However, I don’t think it would have changed the fundamental equation. YMMV of course.
I’ve heard rumors to that effect, yes…
Well, the Euro’s have tried the honey approach as well…and the honey approach was tried with 'lil Kimmy and his merry men in the past as well. How did that work out?
The thing is, at a certain level you are right…dialogue is better than heated rhetoric. But at a deeper level it doesn’t really matter because the fundamental goals and aims of the US and Iran (and NK) are diametrically opposed. Whether we sweeten those words with honey or not makes no difference in the end because of those fundamental differences.
If you can’t blind them with brilliance then baffle them with bullshit.
-XT
Well, YMMV there BG…from my viewpoint it looks like the honey method wasn’t so effective either, to be honest. There has to be a balance somewhere between appeasing these fools and caving into their demands and being belligerent and demanding. Seems that thus far we haven’t been able to find the balance point.
-XT
I’m not buying this whole, “We tried that already” thing. We needed to have been having endless conversations on all different levels with every identifiable faction in Iran. Everything they have had to say in reply should be all over the media so we can analyze it to death.
If members of the Guardian Council are refusing up and down to talk any Westerner at all, then we should be hearing about that. And we have been persistently going to them and demanding to know what all this “death to America” and “we’re gonna nuke Israel” bullshit is about, then we should be hearing what they had to say in response.