- Part of the more cynical case for war in Iraq was to frighten our enemies and show that we mean business. The Bush Administration foolishly squandered the opportunity to take advantage of that.
- Iran may be a rational actor willing to negotiate terms beneficial to both parties.
- We lose credibility with the people of Iran as a result of our stubbornness, thereby "emboldening" our enemy Ahmadinejad and other hard-liners in that country.
Also, a lot of the talk about Iran has to do with Ahmadinejad and his personality. However, he may not be around much longer and can't make major foreign policy decisions without the approval of the Supreme Leader.
10 comments:
Just like North Korea said they would stop their nuclear weapons research in the '90's.
I'm not saying this is the case with Iran but they were scared they were about to be taken from power (Bush thought their days were numbered too) they would do anything to keep that power. Bush did resume negotiations in 2006 (as the article says though).
Do you think they would have kept to these promises when the situation in Iraq got bad in '05-'07?
I would say their actions before and after the letter was sent shows how serious Iran was about these concessions.
I just want to make note that I think the Bush administration handled the war very badly from '04-'07, but I do feel now that the surge has worked and that we shouldn't withdraw our troops now while victory is within reach. I think General Petraeus should be allowed to finish his mission. And I also think that the Iraqi Army is almost ready to take over the mission so we won't have to be their much longer. And I think the person to determine when the Iraqi's can handle it themselves should be Petraeus, not the next President (whoever that may be).
I would like to put on the record that I would NOT vote for Bush again if he were running in this election. I don't have to worry about that. I get to vote for the man who I wanted to be the nominee in 2000.
(sorry for the deletions above, the method I use to post links in the other forum I'm active on isn't working here.)
"..we shouldn't withdraw our troops now while victory is within reach."
Define victory. Bush said you can't count bombings and McCain has not offered a meaningful definition either. So what's a win?
Curt,
Use these tags in comments for formatting and linking.
And the preview feature is your friend.
Thanks! Those are totally different tags than my other site uses.
The link I failed to post earlier is here
"And I also think that the Iraqi Army is almost ready to take over the mission so we won't have to be their much longer. And I think the person to determine when the Iraqi's can handle it themselves should be Petraeus, not the next President (whoever that may be)."
That's what victory means to me.
That article may have been true in '07 when it was written but things are very different now
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