So, Talk Is Not Enough

Conn Carroll / March 06, 2009

It’s not going to be as easy as Obama thought.

As candidate, he received kudos for saying that “strong presidents and strong countries … talk to their adversaries,” implying that the Bush Administration did not even try. He promised he would sit down with Iran, for example, to settle our differences over its nuclear weapons program. He would talk to Russia to resolve our differences over missile defenses in Europe. All that was needed was for the U.S. to “rediscover the power of our diplomacy” and stop treating those who hate the U.S., well, as rogues.

Well, he hasn’t been in office very long, and already, his ‘new’ strategy of diplomacy and talking to rogues is faltering.

As the Washington Post reported yesterday, “Iranian leaders said Wednesday that President Obama follows the ‘crooked ways’ of his predecessor, repeated earlier warnings that Iranian missiles could reach Israel and reiterated that the Holocaust was ‘a lie.’”

On Tuesday, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said, he is willing to talk, but “[h]aggling’” is “not productive….If the Obama administration showed ‘common sense’ in proposing a ‘common shield against all types of threats’ and reconsidered its plans of a missile defence system which could target Russia, Moscow would be prepared to negotiate.”

So much for hoping for change just because the White House changed hands. (more…)