President Obama offering to talk is a much better method than the Republican method of bomb first, questions later.
Perhaps you could educate us with examples of this bomb first, questions later policy. I recall that we talked to Afghanistan and Iraq before we engaged in bombing, and to the best of my recollection I don't recall an instance of us bombing Iran before we talked to them.
The President has barely been in for a month and people are diving at him. I think his method will work very well in the Muslim world
No, it wont. I travel to the region quite frequently and it's not America hatred that is the driving force of dysfunction in the region, for many of these protesters would actually jump at the chance to immigrate to America. It's a sense of injustice at the inadequacy that these folks feel about their cultures and nations on the world stage. They feel that they deserve more respect than they are given and the higher the education level of the protester the greater are the odds that they are more aggrieved.
The thing of it is though, respect is not simply given to placate a country, it must be earned. The Middle East and North Africa are, excluding oil exports, economic basketcases that rival the dysfunction that characterizes their political culture. The rest of the world has little to grab onto in order to offer even the appearance of respect. Look, the economies of South Korea, Thailand, Singapore were all much poorer than those of Iraq and Iran back in 1950-60 and look at them today where they far surpass the performance seen by Iran. The rest of the world progresses, Iran stays mired in stasis.
A racist is a racist.
There is no sugar-coating racism.
Exactly. More racists voted for Obama than against him. The entire Democratic Party platform is premised on racist notions. Democrats would have very few policies if they had to strip out the ones based on racist platforms.
The previous approach towards Iran by the Bush administartion was a failure. Iran grew relatively stronger and the region became more unstable because of US-Iranian tension.
When the issue of Iranian nukes first surfaced, the EU was criticizing the American Hard Power Approach and boldly stated that their Soft Power Approach would work wonders. The US apparently gave them enough rope to hang themselves with for after every EU press release about the gains made by the soft power approach the Iranians simply violated the terms after having reaped the gains from the inducements offered. The US approach got Quaddafi to renounce his nuclear ambitions and to seek normalization of affairs with the US and not a bomb was dropped on Libya. Boy, was the EU pissed at that turn of events.
You err in arguing that the US approach was a failure for the EU approach was even less successful. If Obama adopts the liberal approach, which mimics the EU position, then we shouldn't expect a different outcome. If you get a headache after hitting yourself in the head with a hammer, then you should stop hitting your head with a hammer. Simply switching to a different hammer isn't going to cure you of your headache. The US adopting a failed EU approach isn't going to change the Iranian reaction.
After 911 the Democrats were desperate to show they weren't weaklings when it came to national defense.
Actually, this began even before 9/11. If you look at the transcripts of the Bush-Gore debates you see that Bush was reticent about the use of military power for nation building and had a more isolationist tone, though not an isolationist policy in pure form, than Gore, who was gung-ho about using our military to intervene internationally.
Now we have an absolute rookie running the country who foolishly thinks speaking with these sorts will accomplish something positive. Lasting. Substantive. Obama offers a hand, they kick him in the balls. It's how they work. Obama must possess a level of arrogance to think His presence will change the dynamics on the ground with these morons.
Intellectuals often become enamored of their own brilliance and make the mistake that their negotiating partner can be reasoned with and will honor the agreements made. Run the film on the Keystone Kops affair in Bosnia where Clinton was negotiating with Milosevic and then Milosevic would honor the agreement for only as long as it suited him and then would abandon it, only to have the US come back to the table and renegotiate a new agreement which Milosevic would agree to in order to gain momentary tactical advantage. The US was treating the negotiations as though the other party was honorable and could be counted on to live up to their commitments. Milosevic was treating the negotiations as tactical props - he'd agree so long as it suited him and not for a moment longer and he never felt bound by a treaty.
This same Clintonesque mentality infects Obama and his crowd.