Got to think like a barbaric raghead to get this. He is saying we are weak because we want to talk and because we asked to talk we acknowledge our prior iron fisted approach failed.
Typical third-world rhetoric. They are just being contrary. When we rattle the sabre, they condemn us for being aggressive, when we offer to talk, they ridicule us for being passive. They feel threatened by the capitalism, military power, and democracy of the West, so they proclaim it as having "failed" . . . once again. It should not be forgotten, that much of the Islamic world is illiterate. Passionate speeches for domestic consumption is part of the culture. It often does not reflect actual national policy. Unlike the Arabs who often govern from emotion, the Iranians do have a strategy that they pursue. That strategy involves a strong appeal to nationalism to overcome the many tribal and cultural differences among them and keep a united front. They need a great enemy for that. If we didn't exist they would have had to invent one. Anything we do, they are going to oppose because they must keep the hostility focused on us instead of each other. We can use this against them if we play it smartly. They have overreached and they know it. Israel alone would have served as enemy enough to rally support. They have witnessed the mistake of Saddam and they are not fools. It takes a special kind of incompetence, when you're the leader of a medium-sized third-world country, to maneuver yourself into a shooting war with the United States of America. The Iranians aren't going to do that. But the war of rhetoric will be ramped up. We can use this against them, as well.
Exactly! And any politician should understand they are gonna do this and not even crack the door on having talks without precondition, because this is how it gets spun. Obama made a rookie foreign policy mistake. That in itself is really quite unimportant. What matters now is if he learns from it. I actually have confidence that he will.
Not yet. He's done nothing so far except announce to the world (not a request to Iran) that he is willing to talk IF they "unclinch their fist". That's a precondition.
Well during the debates, he said he was willing to talk without preconditions. Now granted, he tried to back off of that statement because it was a political liability that everyone was hammering on but that is what he initially said. Now he understands you can't just say and is trying to add preconditions, which is a good thing. If he can fix his mistakes and quickly, he'll be a great president. I'll be impressed if he's able to get the pork out of the stimulus bill. That will be a hell of a feat.
How is it wrong? He said it. He used the word IF. That's a precondition. From your source: The preconditions that Obama referred to are the Bush preconditions, which was that Iran would have to stop processing uranium before we would talk--essentially asking them give up before we started. Obama isn't doing that because it didn't work. But his Iran policy is filled with the carrot and the stick and there are preconditions . . . note the word IF.
He says no precondition. So what Obama says he's going to do and what he actually does are two different things then. I got it. :lol:
