US Defence Secretary Gates urges more private US contacts with Iran(appeasement?)

[maddezmom]

Source: AFP

WASHINGTON : US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said he thought more visits to Iran by private American citizens might help bridge differences between the two countries.

But Gates, who in 2004 advocated greater diplomatic engagement with Iran, said Wednesday he believed it would not be useful now to negotiate with the government headed by President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.

"We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage with the Iranians and then sit down and talk with them," he said in a talk at the American Academy of Diplomacy, referring to general US relations with Tehran.

"If there is going to be a discussion then they need something, too," he said. "We can't go to a discussion and be completely the 'demandeur' with them not feeling they do not need anything from us."




Read more: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/347881/1/.html

[Ian David]

1. You mean like Halliburton, that has an office in Tehran and helped them build their nuke plant?

Or like Mitt Romney's company, Bane Capital?

[sinkingfeeling]

2. According to Gates' COC, "(It's a) foolish delusion ."

"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."


http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/05/bush-equates-ta.html

[cliss]

3. Reading between the lines: nothing new here.

I'll translate.

"We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage with the Iranians and then sit down and talk with them,"

translation = we have to figure out a way to get the UPPER HAND in this deal. We have to do that FIRST and then negotiate with them. There has to be something they NEED, besides our worthless currency. Otherwise, we will be in a position of equal footing, or even worse, in a negative position.

"If there is going to be a discussion then they need something, too," he said. "We can't go to a discussion and be completely the 'demandeur' with them not feeling they do not need anything from us."

translation = we're trying to figure out what we can use as leverage. We've finally figured out that they don't NEED US which is a pretty crappy place to be in negotiations.

FACT
Each and every day, there is an enormous transfer of wealth going on. Money, in the form of dollars, is leaving the U.S. and going to Iran and other oil producing countries. It's absolutely staggering. They are growing in strength, while we become more fragile economically.
Meanwhile, stupid Gates is suggesting we send "private Americans to Iran" I thought we are not allowed in there?

[Kool Kitty]

4. By "Private Americans", I'm sure that Gates doesn't mean you

and me. He probably means "Private American Companies", like Halliburton and Blackwater and Exxon and so on and so on....

[Supersedeas]

5. apparently the political wing and the realist wing of the Bushian WH are not on the same page