The Miami Herald calls it one of the “biggest dust-ups of the presidential race so far,” and the sprinkling continues.
At the YouTube Democratic presidential debate on Monday, Barack Obama was asked whether he would meet with the leaders of Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, and Iran without preconditions. “I would,” he replied, saying it was a “disgrace” that we were not. Hillary Clinton, for her part, demurred, saying that “Certainly, we’re not going to just have our President meet with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and you know, the president of North Korea, Iran, and Syria until we know better what the way forward would be.”
Obama has subsequently called Hillary’s stance “Bush-Cheney lite.” Clinton has called the Illinois Senator’s comments “irresponsible and frankly naive.”
Thus far, conservatives and conservative outlets have tended at least implicitly to side with Clinton. Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney of Massachusetts called Obama’s statement “outrageous,” saying it “suggests an agenda that is not in keeping with an agenda focused on building friendships with our allies.” Investor’s Business Daily said it bespeaks an inability to handle “curveballs,” reinforcing “the idea that [Obama is] an inexperienced lightweight.”
As for Clinton’s entourage, it has weighed in with arguments of its own. At the behest of Hillary’s campaign organization, Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State, held a conference call with reporters in which she characterized Hillary’s approach as meaning that we should not engage in talks without preparation. “Without having done the diplomatic spade work, it would not really prove anything,” Albright said.
What are the real issues here, and who is right?
Albright’s comments make plain that Hillary, like Obama, would engage these four odious regimes in talks, only she would do so with diplomatic preparation. In other words, before the U.S. President would sit down with a Kim Jong Il or a Hugo Chavez, an agenda would first be hammered out, and the two sides would have some agreements in place before the leaders gathered at the table. In this way, in Clinton’s words, she would not put “the power and prestige of the United States President” at risk “by rushing into meetings.” Obama, by contrast, would meet with an Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or a Fidel Castro without any sort of diplomatic spadework.
Paradoxically, that might seem a preferable approach. Under it, a President could tell things as they are, declare directly, say, to Ahmadinejad in front of the world that his denial of the Holocaust is disgusting, reprehensible, and unacceptable and his pursuit of nuclear weapons something the U.S. will never abide. Meeting with Chavez, Castro, Kim Jong Il and the rest, Obama could engage in Reaganesque theater on the world stage—the equivalent of traveling to Berlin and demanding Mikhail Gorbachev “tear down this wall.”
Now let’s see what Hillary and her people have in mind when they talk about diplomatic “spadework.” They don’t say. But diplomacy and negotiation imply give and take, concessions from both sides. Will the U.S. come out the winner, or will the mere fact of interchange confer legitimacy, and a propaganda victory, on pariah regimes?
Of course, in attacking Hillary’s unwillingness to talk to dictators as “Bushy-Cheney lite,” Obama is signaling that he himself has no diplomatic agenda beyond talk itself. That would indeed be the worst of all worlds, but is it worse than, or materially different from, what Hillary has in mind?
look for his popularity to plunge another 5 or 10 points. as if he represents anyone besides his ridiculous self with opinoins like this
Bush said violence must be stopped, “but not at the expense of an agreement that does not prevent the crisis from happening again.”
“He has always been at his best when speaking simple, but vital, truths.”
I guess Bush missed out on a career as a satiric pundit. Of course, there is no agreement,and never will be an agreement,that is capable of preventing future crises between these opposing forces. So to paraphrase,”the violence must be stopped,but never can be stopped”. That is a classic Bushism. We must destroy Gaza to save Gaza. Some Animals are more equal than others. We have met the enemy,and it is us.
Of course an agreement is possible, if the Palestinians accept the existence of Israel. No doubt there are some even now who do, but Hamas will not and Hamas is in control So what exactly is idiotic about Bush’s statement, RCAR and Lester? Either The Palestinian people reject Hamas themselves, or Israel has to keep fighting. You don’t ultimately care whether Israel exists or not, so your opinions are irrelevant to the parties involved.
#2,” says,
“Of course, there is no agreement,and never will be an agreement,that is capable of preventing future crises between these opposing forces.”
It’s a pleasure to be shown to be correct at the Contentions minefield. Max Boot,in the next section,
says,
“The Wall Street Journal today runs my article on the prospects for the Israeli invasion of Gaza. To sum up, I basically think that Israel has no choice but to strike back against Hamas, but it also has scant chances of eliminating Hamas or winning lasting peace.—–
I hope I am not being too gloomy here. I realize my perspective runs counter to the typical American attitude that there is no problem in the world without a “solution.” Yet all attempts to “solve” the Israeli-Arab dispute have made, at best, limited progress–– there is little reason to think that the Arabs as a whole, and the Palestinians in particular, have accommodated themselves to Israel’s right to exist.—–I am by no means suggesting that all diplomatic efforts to ameliorate the conflict should be abandoned, but even as the West continues the “peace process” it should be aware of how little chance it has of bringing real peace anytime soon.”
Thus, the meaninglessness of Bush’s “simple,vital truth.”
Does anyone care what the head of the “ass-licking, dying régime” has to say about this?
#3,says, “You don’t ultimately care whether Israel exists or not, so your opinions are irrelevant to the parties involved.”
The use of the word “ultimately” is comical. Israel has the right to protect herself. We help Israel with weapons and aid so that she can defend herself. I have no problem with that. What more do you want?, for me to have the existance of Israel as the “ultimate” mission of my existance.? What more do you want from our government? To invade Iran? My comment #2 was merely to show that Bush continues to have unabated brain freeze.
#5,
Probably a significant deal more than anyone cares about what you have to say about anything.
I don’t want anything from you, RCAR, except an honest answer. Calm down. Did I say anything about Iran? No, you did. Instead of addressing my post. Explain why you think Bush’s statement is meaningless. Explain why YOU think there can’t be an end to the violence. I say it’s because Hamas and its supporters and much of the Arab world refuse to accept Israel’s right to exist as a nation and in the case of Hamas, are committed to its destruction. If they would accept Israel’s right to exist as a nation, the violence would end. You say the violence will never end. In your opinion, why is that? I am not being disingenuous when I ask this. I really want to know what you think. I’m not asking about what the US should do.
Bush Derangement Syndrome clearly shows no sign of abating, and it makes people ready to commit the most heinous acts of torture on the simplest sentences. What can be said to someone who uses a general theoretical/historical claim about the intractability of the Israeli-Palestinian/Arab conflict to reduce to “nonsense” a much simpler claim that Israel can’t stop THIS offensive without an agreement ensuring that THIS kind of crisis (Hamas continually firing rockets into Israel) won’t recur.
#8,”You say the violence will never end. In your opinion, why is that? I am not being disingenuous when I ask this. I really want to know what you think,”
Hatred often trumps that which is in the best interest of the hater. Did the Hatfields ever kiss and make up with the McCoys? Individuals do have more potential for breaking the bonds of hatred than do groups. Groups with their Groupthink are fairly resistant to logic. Mainly, I was just giving Bush a hard time because of his love of truisms rather than actually thinking about something. Swift had a good example of the anti-logical thinking so often at the root of long term wars/long term hatreds. In Book one of Gulliver, there is a descriptions of a multi-generational war between Lillputians,it was over which part of the egg you crack,in order to eat your soft boilers. In our world, The Christians crack theirs up high,the Jews down low,the Muslims in the middle.
What!! No lasting peace in the Middle East? Oh, I see. You must be referring to the historical era up until 2009. The period historians now refer to as B.O.E (Before the Obama Era). What would have been known as 2009 A.D. is now year 1 A.O. (Anno Obamani). 2009 A.D. is the year of “change.” We hoped for change and changed for hope. Taking a conservative estimate, we should have lasting Palestinian/Israeli Peace by say, August, maybe September at the latest.
Why so long you ask? Well, The One isn’t inaugurated until January 20, 1 A.O. and He’ll have His hands full saving the economy by transplanting the means of production with the means of hope. After “changing” the economy, He’ll save the polar bears currently melting on the ice caps, by starting a new green public works program of tire inflatorers flying around America in Air Force 3 inflating tires and hopes and dreams. Once his domestic agenda is shored up, He’ll have the leaders of the Palestinians and Israelis over to Camp Honolulu for a Pilates weekend getaway. Come Monday, it’ll be alright.
Lasting Middle East Peace.
Plenty of Ice Cubes at the North Pole.
And a free Presidential Pilates DVD.
Yes He can!!
And Bush has been at his worst when speaking for Arab interests:
‘Enough is enough.’
‘Two States, side by side, living in peace.’
‘My good friend, Mahmoud Abbas.’
‘Islam is the religion of Peace.’
Of course, all of this pales before the graceless and inept ‘Condi’:
‘We in America understand the benevolence that lies at the heart of Islam.’
RCAR, maybe I am being dense, but it still seems you are skirting my question. Are you saying that Hamas et al are letting their hatred trump their best interest and will never be able to accept the state of Israel? Or are you saying that even if they do accept the state of Israel, Israel’s continued hatred of them will make Israel unable to behave peacefully? Before you can dismiss the entire situation as intractable, you have to be clear about what exactly is causing it. You seem, at least here, to be unwilling to do that.
#13
I think you perceive that these issues are neatly divided into well wrapped packages. I see a mess. When you have evidence that this situation is tractable,let me know,I’ll be all ears.
No one thinks the issues are neatly divided, RCAR. But you are clearly uninterested in trying to unravel the situation, yet you continue to post here. Why?
“Either The Palestinian people reject Hamas themselves, or Israel has to keep fighting. ”
and I’m ridiculous?
does anyone in the entire world think this will result in palestians REJECTING hamas? they are going to be the hezbollah of 09. ROCK STARS
“if the Palestinians accept the existence of Israel”
lol do american indians have to “accept the existence” of america? why should they? and what does it matter. If they want to try and get it back someway they can feel free to try.
” You don’t ultimately care whether Israel exists or not”
what difference does that make? I have to be a zionist to exist in your mind? there’s the mentality for you
Over the past 8 years, anyone could have made serious money betting against anything Bush ever said. This time, too.
Let us cut to the chase. The absolute, bedrock and fundamental goad to the 60-year Israeli-Palestine conflict, in my opinion, is the refusal of the Palestinians in particular and the Arabs in general to admit defeat in 1947-48. One might wish it were otherwise – especially if one is a Muslim – but the Arabs were beaten to a fare-thee-well in what the Israelis call the War for Independence and the Arabs the Nakba.
The existence of the state of Israel follows inexoably from this adamantine fact. The historical context for that is are the two centuries that Ottoman Turkey fought with Imperial Russia, a conflict that did not end happily or the Turks. Forgetful of the aid that Britain and France had supplied to Turkey during the Crimean War, as well as of the efforts made by Britain and France to preserve the Ottoman Empire at the Congress of Berlin (\1877), in 1915, the Turks, emboldened by the stunning victory of the Germans over the Russians at Tannenberg, threw in their lot with the Imperial Germany and joined the Central Powers. In doing so, they knew – or shopuld have known – that they were risking everything.!
Included in everything, of course, was the Turkish province of Damascus, which included wjat is now called Palestine. When, in the fullness of time, the Central Powers were defeated, The ottomans were compelled to relinquish Palestine, Iraq, Trans-Jordan, and Arabia. The terms of dismemberment were unequal. Arabia went off scot free as a reward to the Hashemite sheiks for their alliance with Britain (q.v., “lawrence of Aabia”). Jordan to was awarded to the Hashemites and, after a time, Iraq. Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria had a different fate. They were transferred first to the control of the League of Nations, thence, respectively, to Britain and France as so-called Mandates.
The point is, Palestine was, in age-old parlance, a “spoil of war.” The Turks took their chances and lost. It was now up to the League of Nations, in accord with the so-called laws of armed conflict, to dispose of AS IT WISHED. The Second World War intervened and the League’s mandate was transferred without defect to the United Nations, which duly established the State of Israel in 1947.
What followed, we all know. The Arabs invaded, were trounced, and Israel survived. The Arabs were further defeated in 1967 and 1973 (I leave 1956 outcome to the experts). But they have never admitted defeat! And every negotiation, parley, arrangement, accord, “road map,” etc. since then has done one thing and one thing only: It has allowed the Arabs to believe they have not been defeated. THAT must stop. Let the Arabs admit defeat just once, and most of the Israe.li-Palestine conflict goes away overnight. For how can the Arabs be expected to accomodate themselves to what has happened until they, atlength, admit that what has happened has in fact happened sans doubt!
The ultimate effect of all tjhe European and United Nations – What shall we call it? – Inteference? Intervention? Meddling? – Howsoever one styles it, the result has been to persuade the Arabs of a fantasy: Ther have not been soundly whipped. Nay, they are on the verge of victory. That is what is out of joint in the Middle East. (Of course, such an attitude is mightily abetted by Muslim theology in which it is flat IMPOSSIBLE for lands once Islamicized to be otherwise forever.)
The ancient Romans had a phrase – Vae victis! “Woe to the vanquished!” – to which they regularly repaired. “You lose. You suffer the consequences.” The Turks lost, and all that they had, having been hazarded, was lost as well. The notion of rightness or wrongness is otiose. Was it “right” that after the Second World War, eight million(!) ethnic Germans were dispossesed, simply expelled from Lithuania and Poland, from the Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Rumania, and were driven mercilessly by the Red Army from homes they had occupied for half a millenium into the confines of present-day Germany, under conditions far more horrific than anything that EVER happened or has happened to the Arabs of Mandatory Palestine? What of the Mexicans in 1848? The Phillipinos in 1904? The French-Canadians in 1759? At some point the law of armed conflict must be invoked. “Vae victis!” You would not hear a murmer of disagreement from the Arabs had Israel been stifled at birth, I assure you.
The so-called Palestinians had suffered Turkish hegemony for 700 years with so much as a squawk, a peep, or a whisper of discontent. Palestine was a placid backwater of the Ottoman Empire. The notion that Palestinians, among whom always there was a healthy percentage of Jews, had some right to self-determination vis-a-vis the Sultan in Istanbul, is ridiculous.
The irony here is that the Romans learned that lesson, not as victors but as vanquished. In the Fourth Century BC, the Gauls, under their chieftain Bren, subdued the Romans and exacted a burdensome tribute in gold as the price of their withdrawal from Italy. When the Romans protested at the cost, Bren declared “Vae victis!!” And that was the end of the discussion.
So, after sixty years, I submit, it has come down to this: The Israelis must utterly destroy the Palestinians. Nothing less will suffice.
Umm, yes, you are ridiculous, Lester.
You don’t have to be a Zionist to exist in my mind, Lester. But for me to care about your opinion of what Israel should do, I have to know that you care whether or not Israel exists. Is that too complicated for you?
Why does it matter if the Palestinians accept the existence of Israel? Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear enough. Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Therefore, they are compelled to act to make that happen. If Native Americans were engaged in a war to destroy the US, it would of course matter. They would be enemies.
I honestly can’t believe what a disingenuous creep you are.
albie- I don’t think american indians have ever accepted us and i don’t think they have any responsibilty to do so.
we are here by force. the odds are in our favor. 300 million americans vs like a million native americans.
israel has a billion “indians” it has to contend with and it’s their misfortune not mine. I didn’t choose to live there and I’m tired ofgetting saddled with the bill for those who do.