Good for him. GoBama.
Updated: 3:41 p.m. PT July 24, 2007
WASHINGTON - Barack Obama’s offer to meet without precondition with leaders of renegade nations such as Cuba, North Korea and Iran touched off a war of words, with rival Hillary Rodham Clinton calling him naive and Obama linking her to President Bush’s diplomacy.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19933710/Diane Rehm: So, you would take Iran’s proposed or purported development of nuclear weapons off the table?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Oh, I’d say that’s one of the things we’re going to talk about directly.
Diane Rehm: But would you talk about that first?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK:: No, I’d talk first about-
Diane Rehm: Would that be a precondition?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: No, I’d go in with a set of principles that we agree, in the region, that we want for the region that borders should be respected, security needs should be respected, that the Iraqi people should have a right to determine their own future, and have that dialog with Iraqi and Syrian and Turkish leaders - all the people who are effected by it-
Diane Rehm: Gen-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -and see what comes from it.
http://clarkme.wordpress.com/2006/12/Audience member: Yes, General Clark, in all due respect, we're dealing with a fanatical ideology, who are pursuing it fanatically. You cannot sit at a table that wants to blow you and the table up. These people want to convert the world, the world to Islam. I, speaking for myself, I'm out of that. Okay, how do you handle that type of mentality? What do you do?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, first of all, you know, I have some experience in handling diplomacy, because back in the 1990's when I was in NATO and before that when I was in the Pentagon, I did the negotiations in the Balkans that with Ambassador Holbrooke and others, we helped end that war there. So, no matter how fanatical people are, they still have interests and objectives. Now, I don't recommend we talk to Hizbullah, but there's nothing whatsoever wrong with the United States talking to Syria and Iran, and we should be very clear about talking, talking with these countries. What are your interests, and we should tell them what our interests are. And then we should see if there's anything that is there in common. Maybe there isn't. Maybe there's nothing to do but go to total war. But remember, war is the last resort, because once it starts, and you start killing people, the feelings harden, and it's so difficult at that point to back off. And the United States, we're not going to conquer the world. We can't occupy Syria and Iran and Iraq and change those people and they're their countries. What we want to do is help people advance the cause of freedom and find ways to live together.
Mike Jerrick: So, but over the last ten years, it seems like we've met with the Syrians 50, 60 times. I think President Clinton even met face to face. At what point do you say w- we, we just can't accept, in many cases, lies from them?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well look, nations don't always tell the truth, but you can't educate nations like they're third graders, and you can't treat them like they're third graders. We got very close in the 1990s to a peace agreement that would've ended fighting between the Palestinians, the Syrians and the Israelis, very close. So, there's no reason why we can't keep talking. You don't draw a line and say, 'Okay, that's it. I'm not going to talk to you. We'll see you on the battlefield,' unless there's a direct threat to the United States. Neither Syria nor Iran is directly threatening the United States right now.
http://securingamerica.com/node/1281
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