Obama's shifting positions about meeting with Iran's leaders
Dean Barnett notes how Barack Obama is now trying to spin what he said last fall in the youtube debate about how he'd meet during his first year in office without preconditions with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Cuba, and North Korea. Mrs. Clinton made a big deal of her differences with Obama on such a willingness to meet with dictators without setting any preconditions and Obama didn't back down and highlighted this as one of the differences between them. Now, however, he's backing away from that promise and blaming the media for misinterpreting this exchange.
QUESTION: In 1982, Anwar Sadat traveled to Israel, a trip that resulted in a peace agreement that has lasted ever since.
In the spirit of that type of bold leadership, would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?
OBAMA: I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them -- which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration -- is ridiculous.
(APPLAUSE)
Now, Ronald Reagan and Democratic presidents like JFK constantly spoke to Soviet Union at a time when Ronald Reagan called them an evil empire. And the reason is because they understood that we may not trust them and they may pose an extraordinary danger to this country, but we had the obligation to find areas where we can potentially move forward.
And I think that it is a disgrace that we have not spoken to them. We’ve been talking about Iraq -- one of the first things that I would do in terms of moving a diplomatic effort in the region forward is to send a signal that we need to talk to Iran and Syria because they’re going to have responsibilities if Iraq collapses.
Susan E. Rice, a former State Department and National Security Council official who is a foreign policy adviser to the Democratic candidate, said that “for political purposes, Senator Obama’s opponents on the right have distorted and reframed” his views. Mr. McCain and his surrogates have repeatedly stated that Mr. Obama would be willing to meet “unconditionally” with Mr. Ahmadinejad. But Dr. Rice said that this was not the case for Iran or any other so-called “rogue” state. Mr. Obama believes “that engagement at the presidential level, at the appropriate time and with the appropriate preparation, can be used to leverage the change we need,” Dr. Rice said. “But nobody said he would initiate contacts at the presidential level; that requires due preparation and advance work.”
Well, nobody perhaps except Barack Obama himself.
Barnett posits three possible reasons for Obama's change of heart.
Clearly, Obama has had a change of heart regarding whether or not to have a love-in with Ahmadenijad. The real interesting question is what brought this change of heart about. There are three possible scenarios:
1) Obama always thought that meeting with the world's tin pot despots was a goofy idea, but made such a pledge nonetheless in a craven effort to appeal to the far left of the Democratic party which thinks a hope-based foreign policy is preferable to one based on iron and steel.
2) Obama still believes that a goodwill tour of chatting up the world's worst people is a swell idea, but has abandoned it in a craven effort to appeal to the vast middle of the American body politic which thinks the idea is screwy.
3) Obama originally thought the Kumbaya foreign policy was a good idea, but having considered the matter more fully has since realized that it's rash and naïve and thus has abandoned it.
You can figure out for yourself which of these choices you believe and what it says about Obama's vaunted judgment. Barnett votes for the third choice and thinks that it actually says something worse about Obama. Rather than simply being a cynical politician shifting as he campaigns for differing constituencies, he's one who is essentially clueless on foreign policy.
Yes, his campaign has done a swell job raising money and corralling voters, but when forced to discuss serious issues without the aid of a teleprompter, Obama often seems ill-informed yet still supremely confident. It took Obama 10 months between the YouTube debate and this weekend to realize his Goodwill Tour for Bad Men was a crazy idea. But as president, his decisions and policies, even the half-baked ones, will have consequences in real time.
