>> If talking to Iran is so bad, then how come the Administration has worked SO hard to talk to N. Korea?
First of all, Bush has not "talked" with NK. Obama was asked whether he would talk with Iran with no preconditions, and he said yes.
The reason this is important is that when a president talks with a foreign country, it gives that country credibility. This is one reason diplomacy is carried on behind the scenes through discrete channels.
The point is that a president can NEVER make a statement such as the one Obama made. Ever. And that he made it speaks volumes about his lack of understanding of the gravity of the office.
When a prospective president makes a dumb remark like that (i.e., that he will meet without preconditions with Iran), it sends signals to all corners of the world -- most of which are undesirable. The most important such signal is one of weakness -- which is something you never want to do, PARTICULARLY if you're thinking about negotiating somewhere down the road.
When you suggest that you'll negotiate with Iran, you effectively reward bad behavior. The appropriate thing to do is to convey through back channels that if Iran behaves in a certain way for a particular time, gives up certain concessions, THEN we can talk.
My daughter is a speech pathologist/behavioral analyst who specializes in working with autistic children. She told me of a child she was working with who would become violent during speech therapy sessions, and as a result of the violence, the speech therapy would be stopped. The problem, of course, was that that was exactly what he wanted, so stopping the therapy simply reinforced the behavior. In the end, you have to treat that child by not rewarding violent behavior, or you cannot make progress. The principle applies to negotiating with terrorists.
You cannot reward the bad behavior by "sitting down" with the terrorist, or you simply reinforce the undesirable behavior. Professionals know this; amateurs don't.
This is serious shit. You do not want to turn it over to a Madelyn Albright. |
