Wash. Post ignored own prior reporting that Sec. Gates agrees U.S. should "sit down and talk" with Iran
SUMMARY: The Washington Post reported that President Bush "compared people seeking talks with Iran and radical Islamic groups to the Nazis' appeasers" and noted that "Democratic leaders demanded that [Sen. John] McCain repudiate Bush's comments." The article reported that "McCain joined in on Bush's side" and quoted McCain as saying: "What does Senator Obama want to talk about with Ahmadinejad?" But the article did not note that, as the Post previously reported, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, like Obama, has said that the United States needs to be willing to "sit down and talk" with Iran.
In a May 16 Washington Post article discussing President Bush's controversial remarks in his May 15 speech to the Israeli Knesset, staff writer Michael Abramowitz reported that Bush "compared people seeking talks with Iran and radical Islamic groups to the Nazis' appeasers" and that he "warned that the United States must not negotiate with Iran or radical groups such as Hamas." Abramowitz noted that "Democratic leaders demanded that [Sen. John] McCain repudiate Bush's comments," and he reported that, rather than "repudiate" the comments, "McCain joined in on Bush's side" and quoted McCain as saying: "Why does Senator [Barack] Obama want to sit down with a state sponsor of terrorism? What does Senator Obama want to talk about with [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad?" But Abramowitz did not note that, as his Post colleague Karen DeYoung reported in a May 15 article, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, like Obama, has said that the United States needs to be willing to "sit down and talk" with Iran. DeYoung reported that in a May 14 speech to the Academy of American Diplomacy, a group of retired diplomats, Gates said of Iran, "We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage ... and then sit down and talk with them. ... If there is going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can't go to a discussion and be completely the demander, with them not feeling that they need anything from us."
From the May 16 Post article:
On an emotional visit to mark Israel's 60th anniversary, President Bush on Thursday compared people seeking talks with Iran and radical Islamic groups to the Nazis' appeasers, provoking a political storm at home and accusations that he was politicizing the celebration.
[...]
In the speech, Bush warned that the United States must not negotiate with Iran or radical groups such as Hamas.
"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush told the Israeli lawmakers. "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."
[...]
Democratic leaders demanded that McCain repudiate Bush's comments, but McCain joined in on Bush's side. "Why does Senator Obama want to sit down with a state sponsor of terrorism? What does Senator Obama want to talk about with Ahmadinejad?" McCain asked reporters while campaigning in Ohio.
[...]
White House press secretary Dana Perino dismissed the Democrats' complaints, saying that Bush's remarks were not directed at Obama. "This is not new policy that the president announced, and it should come as no surprise to anybody that the president would talk about this," Perino said.
Obama is far from the only politician who has advocated a renewed dialogue with Iran to try to get it to give up its nuclear-enrichment programs. A smaller number of U.S. politicians, including former president Jimmy Carter, have said the United States should talk to Hamas.
Note to George W Bush, all his cronies, the corporate media, and all Bush defenders.......
YOU DON'T OWN THE RIGHT TO REWRITE HISTORY!
Oh..... and the whole entire Middle East is not all terrorists, nor is the whole Middle East 100% filled with America haters.
Nor is the Middle East filled 100% of those that want to destroy America.
Although.... the way American foreign policy has treated the Middle East.... they certainly have every right to hate us.
The corporate republican way of dealing with those that are 'different' than us in America doesn't work!
Note to George W Bush, all his cronies, the corporate media, and all Bush defenders.......
YOU DON'T OWN THE RIGHT TO REWRITE HISTORY!
Rupert Murdoch bought the exclusive rights for history revision for Faux News....
If Bush wants to insert himself into the upcoming presedential race, fine....and let him say whatever he wants, let him air his views, but for him to take a thinly veiled shot at the presumptive Democratic nominee while on foreign soil is abysmmal. Of course he was referring to Obama, for his minions to act all coy is not only arrogant, but cowardly.
We, as Americans, deserve to have a substantive and thoughtful debate from those who want to lead our country and our foreign policy on an important issue such as this, we don't deserve politicians and current presidents to posture politically, especially in another country, to illicit soundbites and lob partisan attacks.
Shame on Bush.
>>If Bush wants to insert himself into the upcoming presedential race, fine....
Definitely. He could be McCain's Jeremiah Wright.
...and Gates was doing such a fine job, before he decided to disagree with the President and all-knowing supreme commander-in-chief, and his parrot McCain. I wonder how long it will be until his dismissed for 'non-political' reasons.
Hopefully Obama will re-hire him once he's elected, Gates has done quite well given the circumstances he inherited.
McCain joined in on Bush's side. "Why does Senator Obama want to sit down with a state sponsor of terrorism? What does Senator Obama want to talk about with Ahmadinejad?" McCain asked reporters while campaigning in Ohio
WHO in their right mind would invade a country with the majority population aligned with their neighbor, one of the so-called "axis of evil"? ONLY an absolute idiot would do such a thing. IRAQ will change the face of the Middle East? Pleaseeee
THIS is what 4 years of John McCain's presidency will be about. NOTHING He is no different than Bush. While he served his country honorably he doesn't have a freaking clue about foreign policy. First we will stay in Iraq for 100 years now it's 5 years. Any clue how we're going to get out in 5 years? How many more American lives will be lost in 5 years? If history is an indicator at least 3,000. During McCain's presidency he'll kill Osama. Since Bush has had 7 years to find him "dead or alive" and hasn't found him how in the hell can McCain do it in 4 years using Bushes same policy?
In 2003 Iran offer talk with the US, everything on the table. What did our foreign policy expert Bush do? NOTHING! The Iranians were scared. The US had defeated an army in 3 days, something that Iran had failed to defeat in 8 years!
McCain's military service and his years in the senate means he has more experience? GET REAL! ANYONE who wants to follow the policies of dumb-nuts needs to retire. This country cannot stand another 4 years of Bush foreign policy!
You make too much sense. How dare you be educated? The White Right doesn't like that.
The Saudis just told him to go screw when he asked them to increase oil production to help the worlds economy.
It really pisses me off that this clown represents us to the rest of the world and he doesn't have a clue what the words he uses mean.
...he doesn't have a clue what the words he uses mean.
Well, he certainly can't pronounce them, that's for sure. Did you hear him pronounce "argument" in his speech yesterday? "ARGERMINT" It
How many names has he used since he was HSTYBUF6553?
the whitehouse says the comments were directed at carter, who did meet with hamas and thought they were swell people. obama is so narcicistic, he thinks it's all about him.
he did, however, say he would meet without preconditions with iran. anytime you tell the truth about the messiah, he says it's a personal attack. he really has major malfunctions.
Sands is too stupid to know he is embarassing himself. A guy like this could get his own hate radio show!
SAnds, so when "quoted McCain as saying: "What does Senator Obama want to talk about with Ahmadinejad?" does that mean Gramps was fooled into thinking Bush's comments were about Obama also? Somebody is trying to pull the wool over our eyes.
Another point: how did Nixon bring China into the 20th century? How did Kennedy solve the Cuban missle crisis? Any junior high school student learns in world history that secret treaties, miscomunications and imperialism lead to wars. Get with the program and act like an adult is what people in Europe are telling me how they feel about the US foriegn policies of late.
Were the White House's comments also directed at 2006 McCain?
From a 2006 interview with James Rubin:
I asked: "Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?"
McCain answered: "They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it's a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that."
...but, but, but... McCain is a maverick!!!!! Of course, until President Bush weighs in on the issue, at which point he is firmly behind the President. Of course, McCain should be praised and exalted for his ability make his own independent decision, without any outside influence whatsoever.
Bush (McCain, too) handed Barack the perfect opportunity to rub their faces in the pile of crap the Republicans have been leaving on our living rom floor for years.
I love Barack's response:
"If George Bush and John McCain want to have a debate about protecting the United States of America, that is a debate I am happy to have any time, any place, and that is a debate that I will win, because George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for." Obama
the whitehouse says the comments were directed at carter, who did meet with hamas and thought they were swell people. obama is so narcicistic, he thinks it's all about him.
You are a sad little man. If the comments were about former President Carter why use a senator as an example?
Then, the president said: "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along." "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is - the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history," Mr. Bush added.
he did, however, say he would meet without preconditions with iran. anytime you tell the truth about the messiah, he says it's a personal attack. he really has major malfunctions.
Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, said on Monday that he agrees with the position, stated mainly by Sen. Barack Obama, that the U.S. would benefit from having direct talks with the leaders of its most distrusted adversaries.
"Absolutely," said Scowcroft, when asked by The Huffington Post whether he thought the next president should meet with the likes of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "It's hard to make things better if you don't talk."
Scowcroft, a former Air Force general who is widely considered to be one of the preeminent foreign policy minds in the United States
It appears that you along with Bush and McCain have the REAL malfunctions.
mmfa keeps slipping the turd in the punchbowl that Sec.Gates has advocated negotiations with Iran. The following will add a little context to mmfa's political pandering.
This from the Pentagon Press Briefing:
-- ..we will continue to keep the pressure on Iran, amplify, as I said, the pressure on Iran so that they do ultimately feel so much pressure that they are willing to change their ways. That is the focus of the administration's policy. It has not changed. It did not change when the secretary made his remarks yesterday...
He's been dealing with Iran for nearly 40 years, and over those four decades, he is still looking for the elusive Iranian moderate with whom we can deal rationally and constructively. You know, you heard him talk yesterday about the notion that he wrote a paper with Brzezinski in 2004 about the prospect of reaching out to the Iranians back then, but that was under the leadership of President Khatami,
Under the leadership of President Ahmadinejad, their role in Iraq and elsewhere is completely unambiguous. It is entirely unhelpful. And under that -- the leadership of Ahmadinejad, the secretary sees no prospect for government-to-government talks, negotiations, until such time that the Iranians feel such pressure from the diplomatic, economic and military pressure we are putting them under that they want to change their ways.
And what he was speaking of in terms of more contact with the Iranians is on a peoples-to-peoples basis; that there should be more of a flow of private citizens from the U.S. to Iran... He is in no way at this point advocating offering incentives to talk with the Iranians.
I'll wait to fully understand the context of his words until he makes his own clarification.
Wow, what a metaphor! The strained a-peas-ment metaphor...Wesley taking the high chair of history to state that he alone chooses to read the full statements of people instead of letting Media Matters strain the peas for him, letting them dribble slowly off the chin onto his lap and leaving a mess to clean up, while drinking from a sippy cup of facts.
Ahmadinejad does not contain that much political power in Iran.
The Iranian government has made several overtures to work with us. They were very helpful in regard to Afganistan. As much as anything our administration has worked to ignore any chance to normalize relations with the country. They had too much value as a potential future victim. Their abiltiy to believe that Iran can be a useful victim says much about their intelligence and perception. I'd start with the word selfdelusional.
Gates makes more sense as a Sec Def to Obama than to Bush. Gates is about the only sensible member of the Bush Administration. Talking to your enemies is NOT appeasement. Appeasement only happens when you give away something without getting something back in return.
When a President sets forth to take over a country, talking to that country's immediate neighbors sure as hell better be part of the plan. But Bush says that talking to Iran and Syria is akin to appeasing Hitler. Gates and Obama have it right. Bush and McCain are guaranteed to keep the anarchy rolling. I have to think that Gates will be set outside the box a la Colin Powell sometime soon. He makes too much sense!
I agree wholeheartedly with everything you just said.
Well played, sir.