“Muslim attitudes” were not a problem with the US/Israeli negotiations because Egypt and Jordan are not Iran and the Iranian leadership. Nor were they dealing with jihad groups and official terrorists (Hamas), but Fatah and Abbas.

A CIC has every right in the world to pursue the wrong path. And we can all rest assured Obama has every intention of taking us on the wrong path.

Negotiation with leadership that refuses to budge of evolve is a waste of time. China has evolved economically, tho not on human rights. Soviets abandoned communism and their empirical quest. Iran hasn’t budged one bit on Israel, or their enrichment program. Why should they? Obama’s busy trying to set them up with nuke power and proxy enrichment.

Your “bingo” confirms that you, also, recognize that negotiating with Iran serves no purpose.

What’s this “we” stuff

Your outrage and insistence that the US unquestionably stands behind the force of democracy. If you’re not even willing to concede that the Kingdom is un-democratic then let’s stop pulling teeth over this. Perhaps your intent was to demonstrate the fruitlessness of negotiation by example

Don’t know much about the Muslim attitudes INRE negotiations, do you?

This is arm-chair sociology; “Muslim attitudes” were not a problem during US/Israeli negotiation with Egypt and Jordan.

Who cares? Reagan did not see it as a strategic blunder, and he was correct

Wonderful, and Obama does not see engagement as a strategic blunder, so your claims to the contrary can be discounted just as history has discounted those of the 80’s neo-cons?

no leader can shake hands with Iran on a deal and walk away without blood on their own hands

So the Iranian violence is worse than Tienanmen and the Soviet regime? We seem to have walked away fine with those deals. For all your moral bluster, it has no basis in previous successful US foreign policy; your main contention is simply that you think negotiation is a waste of time.

If you’d pay attention, you’d know the int’l community has been engaging Iran in nuke talks all along, absent the US. And that’s accomplished what?

Bingo.

You can persist against the “most repressive” statement, but a sharia government is repressive and un-democratic by definition, and yet we have no problems negotiating with them. So we can skip the moral outrage when Obama proposes talking with Iran.

What’s this “we” stuff, kemosabi? Speak for yourself and your own moral outrage. Just because you feel that way, the rest of the world doesn’t have to, nor does it make you correct. It is your opinion… period. And a very narrow-minded one at that.

Reagan went into the negotiations with certain internal positions that he was not willing to back down on, he did not force Gorbachev to make concessions before these negotiations were held like Bush had done with Iran.

Reagan showed up with a stacked deck and knew Gorbachev/Russia had to make the concessions, or bankrupt their nation. Bush had no such stacked deck, and neither does Obama. Bush just recognized a waste of time. If you’d pay attention, you’d know the int’l community has been engaging Iran in nuke talks all along, absent the US. And that’s accomplished what?

…. an agreement to negotiate is not an agreement to appease.

Spoken like a true, uneducated westerner. Don’t know much about the Muslim attitudes INRE negotiations, do you? Hint… go back thru Pakistan’s history with the Taliban and their militant factions and you’ll get clue. The short of it? Sign of weakness, and is disregarded. Promise and agree all you want. It is not honored, and the appeaser is dishonored. You view the enemy as if they were western in their culture and belief. Which is why you’re not in charge of diplomacy and foreign affairs.

INRE Reagan, I never argued that this was a concession, but that it was a compromise.

A compromise is when you yield some of what you want. Considering that Reagan’s goal was both nations reducing nuke capability, it was not a compromise. He got exactly what he walked in there to get… zero option in 1986, and SDI still a demand. The INF came one year after. All done in two years since they first sat down at the table in 1985.

In hind-sight, it was one that was beneficial to the US, but at the time many saw it as a strategic blunder

Who cares? Reagan did not see it as a strategic blunder, and he was correct. You will always have advisors and pundits that dissent. Why do I care what Krauthammer said at the time? I agree with him sometimes, and others not. He is not the guiding light for my opinions and analyses.

Likewise, Obama can work towards a compromise that benefits the US, especially now that Iran is internally unstable.

The big Zero sealed his fate on Iran with his wishy washy approach. He demonstrated no convictions for freedom and value for human rights until the rest of Europe led the way. By not supporting the rights of the supporters (without actually supporting either scumbag candidate), an opportunity was lost. Now that it’s known thru the world that the current instilled regime is illegitimate, and watched their violent crowd control, no leader can shake hands with Iran on a deal and walk away without blood on their own hands. Obama’s lost… just not figured it out yet.

BTW, as I pointed out, Reagan did not “compromise” since he went into the agreement demanding both the US and USSR reduce arms. You will note the only “compromise” Obama is suggesting is on behalf of Israel… which he has no right to promise.

Yep, it sounds familiar, confirms what D’Souza was saying in his book. Reagan had all kinds of critics, they turned out to be wrong and then the wall went down.

My daughter has a little tiny piece of that wall and a photo of the dismanteling of it that she had made into a poster. Ahh, memories.

You still place Saudi in a category I don’t.

You can persist against the “most repressive” statement, but a sharia government is repressive and un-democratic by definition, and yet we have no problems negotiating with them. So we can skip the moral outrage when Obama proposes talking with Iran.

Reagan’s preparations of superior arms and thwarted Soviet inroads to enlarging empire led to enforceable preconditions

This kind of parsing is pure sophism – the preconditions we’re talking about are enforced against the other party, not yourself, prior to negotiations. Reagan went into the negotiations with certain internal positions that he was not willing to back down on, he did not force Gorbachev to make concessions before these negotiations were held like Bush had done with Iran. Obama, too has emphasized that there are certain issues which he will not change, that he’s not going to Iran with potentially endless appeasement. If you want to call that preconditions I won’t argue over the syntax. You act like he’s going to talk with Iran and come back with Michelle in a burka – an agreement to negotiate is not an agreement to appease.

INRE Reagan, I never argued that this was a concession, but that it was a compromise. In hind-sight, it was one that was beneficial to the US, but at the time many saw it as a strategic blunder (my link to Krauthammer had him eagerly anticipating doomsday, for example). Likewise, Obama can work towards a compromise that benefits the US, especially now that Iran is internally unstable. The specifics are a whole separate debate, but we do have some leverage in working multi-laterally with Europe, Russia, and the Saudis (more at BICOM, and CFR then and now). As with Reagan, we do not know for sure if these compromises can be negotiated, but we must stop letting Iran effectively dictate the terms of the debate by expecting preconditions before even getting to the table.

‘We won’t stand by and let you maintain weapon superiority over us, We can agree to reduce arms, or we can continue the arms race, which I think you know you can’t win.’

That is a man standing firm on preconditions and conditions. It was not a concession, but part of his negotiations all along.

Iran’s preconditions not only include enrichment, but recognizing Israel. If they have no intent to move on either point, any negotiation is moot, and Obama has no bag of tricks in preparations to change their mind.

You still place Saudi in a category I don’t. Also moot to drag out that argument. Just because you believe they are the “most repressive” regime doesn’t make it true. Done with you there.

Failed negotiations leading to future successes? Perhaps. But not with a current regime that won’t budge unless preparations are done to corner them. Negotiating with Arafat was an utter waste of time. It did not lead to future successes. Only when Abbas came to power was that door opened. The same applies to Iran. Unless there is a regime change, or additional leverage gained, it’s a vicious circle in Dante’s levels of Hell.

Regardless, you may not believe that Obama has done the necessary preparations in this case, as Kraut and Buckley did with Reagan, but his high-level approach to diplomacy is certainly no departure from how we’ve dealt with difficult despots in the past.

Your concept of “high-level approach to diplomacy” actually translates into what constitutes a moral equivalency approach. Empty as the Zero suit himself, and bears no resemblence to any one save da Jimmah Carter himself. Dependence upon moral equivalene as leverage falls on deaf ears with the likes of the Ayatolla, Ahmadinejad, Hamas and Hezbollah. Probably because they’re laughing too loudly at the Eunuch in Chief.

So what do we have: It’s perfectly reasonable to negotiate and ally yourself with an internally repressive or un-democratic state (like Saudi Arabia) as long as we share external common interests that are benefited; It’s also perfectly reasonable to engage with enemy states as long as we have the proper leverage – in fact, even failed negotiations (as was Reagan’s first summit) are useful to open lines of communication and size-up the needs of the enemy. Essentially what you’re saying is “negotiations are good when they work“.

Iran is obviously different from the Soviet Union, and our openings for leverage are much smaller, but we’ve been playing this preconditions game for decades now – either Bush’s silent preparations are enough and it’s time to meet or they aren’t working and it’s time to meet. Regardless, you may not believe that Obama has done the necessary preparations in this case, as Kraut and Buckley did with Reagan, but his high-level approach to diplomacy is certainly no departure from how we’ve dealt with difficult despots in the past.

Reagan’s “preconditions” were already implemented when he came to the table with Gorbachev in 1985… ala the Reagan Doctrine to supply any indigenous anti-communist movement with military and materials. Guerillas in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Angola and Nicaragua were happy to be beneficiaries. Then combine it with the liberation of Grenada in ‘83, and a peace-time military build up to the tune of $1.5 tril, and Reagan had effectively stopped the Russian communist advances in the 3rd world countries cold.

First, you should note that when Reagan came to office the Brezhnev Doctrine (once a communist country, always a communist country) was quite successful. In the Vietnam era between 1974 and 1980, ten countries had fallen to the Soviets. Greneda changed that, and the Russians knew they had a POTUS with every intent on chopping their empire.

Why do you think the Old Guard accepted Gorbachev to begin with? They knew their strategies were failing, and Gorbachev knew he’d break the Russian bank if he attempted to go head to head with a US arms race. They were no longer gaining territory, but either losing it… or fighting to maintain power.

Reagan walked to the table with all the aces in the hands of the US because of his counterstrategy, and never backed down. And key to that was SDI. No way, no how was RR about to relinquish that vision. The only acquiescence on his part was to buck his own advisors… both those who wanted to “reward” Russia (which he had no intention of doing), and those that didn’t want to take a chance on Gorbachev. Reagan did. He was, after all, admitting opening that Lenin’ism was not working. Reagan saw an opportunity in the leadership change. He got Gorbachev to happily accept the Zero Option because the other options were unthinkable.

So…. “Preconditions”? It was Reagan’s prep work prior to hitting the negotiation table that made what you consider “preconditions” obsolete. Russia was already floundering, knowing they were between a rock and a hard spot because of Reagan’s years of strategy before coming to the table.

Interesting on those chapters, and the one you picked. Sofaer, a legal advisor to the State Dept, came into that position only after the above arms build up, Reagan Doctrine and Grenada had transpired. To read his commentary, you’d think that Reagan was all appeasement like Obama.

Reagan’s reasons for changing his mind about Gorbachev were “ignorant and pathetic,” columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote. He added that no one should be surprised that Reagan had lost his head because “it was never weighted down with too many ideas to begin with”. More charitably, William F. Buckley urged Reagan to reconsider his more positive assessment of the Gorbachev regime: “To greet it as if it were no longer evil is on the order of changing out entire position toward Adolf Hitler”. George Will mourned that “Reagan has accelerated the moral disarmament of the West by elevating wishful thinking to the status of political philosophy”.

Sound familiar?

Wilfred McCay reviews D’Souza’s book “Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader”

It is easy to forget the courage Reagan showed, in the face of a vast international peace movement, and much domestic uneasiness, in following through with the decision to deploy the missiles. It was a key move, in retrospect, toward the ultimate defeat of the Soviet Union. Perhaps even more controversial, and (we now know) just as consequential, was his insistence upon moving ahead with the development of a strategic missile defense, a move that apparently unnerved Soviet leaders even more than it did nervous American pundits.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0377/is_n131/ai_20632403/

Soviet Union’s political prisoners offered hope by Reagan’s speeches are some how equivalent to the Twelvers habit of stoning women, and hacking their protesters to death? If anyone is getting laughed at by our enemy, it’s Obama, they’re reading him like a first grade primer.

I feel we’ve been winding down here like two boxers in the last rounds of a long fight, but I would like to make a point about basic pre-conditions. When Reagan met with Gorbachev, the Soviet jails were filled with political prisoners, they possessed long and short range nuclear missiles, and their anthem proclaimed the eventual take-over of the entire planet; yet if Reagan had demanded preconditions he would’ve been laughed off the diplomatic stage, both internally and externally. Likewise for the other dictators. Why would a country give up a major bargaining chip just to sit down with the US? And if subsequent negotiations didn’t compensate them, why wouldn’t they just re-instate the policy? Moreover, has any sovereign nation ever actually agreed to preconditions on the scale that we’re demanding from Iran? If not, can we recognize this preconditions rhetoric for what it is – a way to justify isolation and military action rather than an actual diplomatic tool?

1. Afghanistan
2. Democratic Republic of Congo
3. Iraq (after US, per them… mostly as a result of displacement)
4. Nepal
5. Sudan
6. Guatemala
7. Mali
8. Pakistan
9. Saudi Arabia
10. Somali capital, Mogadishu

What’s most interesting is that they cite abuse, genital mutilation, domestic violence, rape, illiteracy, ill-health, and deaths in childbirth for most of the countries.

What’s their beef with SA? “…women are treated as lifelong dependents, under the guardianship of a male relative. Deprived of the right to drive a car or mix with men publicly, they are confined to strictly segregated lives on pain of severe punishment.”

Call me wacky and zany but, as a female, I’d prefer “lifelong dependents” and no right to drive over the more brutal treatment of women in the other nations.

That said, I have repeatedly said to you they are not the icon of what we’d like to see in a ME nation. But they are far from the worst of the worst.

Their “central government” of ministers is appointed by and serves at the pleasure of the King;

uh… rather like Obama’s czars, right?

Do you honestly think that no elections in SA is better than the flawed ones in Iran?

It’s a monarchy… been that way since it’s inception. It wasn’t converted to that, or to Shariah law, via rebellion and coup. And I have also been on record here that if a population votes for Shariah law as rule of the land, it’s an entirely different matter than terrorists forcing such by seizing control via violence.

And yes, political parties and rallies are forbidden in SA. However the citizens are allowed to discuss reforms in such areas as education, women’s rights, labor rules, economics, and domestic abuse, as noted in Arab American News INRE an article about a hunger strike/fast protest in 2008. There are also demonstrations and protests (sorta) allowed, as they did in Dec 2008, protesting Israel and Gaza. As a matter of fact, the people of Qatif in eastern SA have a long history of street protests, with major demonstrations held in 1979, 2002 and 2006. Activists in Riyadh actually wrote to get permission (denied), while the Qatif population just did it… as they usually do. The Saud government just denied it happened.

On the second day of the Qatif protest, the police fired rubber bullets to break it up… they didn’t beat people to a pulp, use live ammo, and raid homes in the dead of night. That’s the Ayatollah’s method of crowd control. Rubber bullets have been used in the past by Britain in Northern Ireland. Now they use baton rounds or plastic bullets because they are faster, more accurate. I’d say that puts SA’s riot control on a par with Britain, yes?

Again I will stress, I do not consider SA a model of fairness and Muslim democracy. Nor do I give them the dubious label of the “most repressive” regime. They are what they have been since the beginning.

BTW, I know many ex military families that lived in SA. Their personal experiences do not jive with your personal views. And frankly, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt… since I’m quite sure they would not feel the same way about living in Iran.

But perhaps you’ll enlighten me to an event with mass human abuse for political dissent in Saudi Arabia, as Iran does now.

This is a joke right? The kind of mass human abuse we see now in Iran goes on every day in Saudi Arabia as a matter of course and policy. The Saudi people are forbidden from organizing, from criticizing the government and from any kind of protest; infringement on this is punishable by imprisonment or death. Their “central government” of ministers is appointed by and serves at the pleasure of the King; who has final say on all government decisions – it is patently less democratic than that of Iran. Do you honestly think that no elections in SA is better than the flawed ones in Iran? That no protests or opposition in SA is better than the marginalized one in Iran? The fact that you try to minimize this by comparing them in monarchy and in draconian law to the UK or other unnamed countries makes your pro-democracy priorities abundantly clear.

Absolutely good faith plays into the equation. One would think that you – who advocates for negotiations with the likes of Iran behind your beloved leader – would give that high marks.

Of course I do, Bush was right to strengthen alliances with SA just as Obama is right to attempt negotiations with Iran – my point, if it hasn’t been clear enough, is that our relationship with SA contradicts your assertion that the US is absolute in it’s support of democracy, not that it was the wrong thing to do.

The difference between “traditional” diplomacy – as you ask in your last paragraph – is that there were preconditions on some of the basics

What basic preconditions were met when Scowcroft toasted in China mere months after Tiananmen? Of course, in hindsight, we see that these governments would move towards reform – but at the time they were much more staunch enemies of Democracy than Iran is now. When it comes down to it, your argument against engaging with Iran has nothing to do with history or principles, but merely that you think it will not work. This is a fair and simple point – for example, I doubt how far we can get with engagement in North Korea, although I don’t think it hurts to try. But you selectively wrap it in principles of freedom and liberty so that you can claim Obama is un-American when he does something you simply disagree with. Partisan hackery at its worst.