Obama buddies up to Iran?

On October 31st, Barack Obama, one of the numerous Democratic Presidential candidates for the 2008 election, said he would “engage in aggressive personal diplomacy” with Iran if he were elected President and would offer economic incentives, in addition to a possible promise not to seek a regime change if Iran stopped meddling in Iraq and cooperated on terrorism and nuclear issues. Not only would he do this, but there would be no preconditions on Iran for these talks. This is a very bad idea.

First, this is a very bad idea for the same reason Senator Clinton thinks it is a bad idea - a sitting American President meeting and negotiating with a leader of nation with aims contrary to America’s would serve only to help America’s enemies and adversaries in propaganda wars.

Second, Iran is a rogue nation with nuclear ambitions, and a leader that is not able to be trusted. Heck, he wouldn’t even be taken seriously, given his comments, except for the fact that he has ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons. In addition to that, this is the same nation that has held a conference on examining whether or not the Holocaust took place. Iran also has a horrible track record on human rights and has treated Iranian-American scholars, academics, and journalists badly (allowing them into the country, but then jailing them when they attempt to leave the country on the grounds of trumped up espionage charges and of being a threat to the stability of the regime).

Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has even vowed to wipe Israel off of the map. Yes, a whole country, and Israel at that (of course, him doing so is another story, just look at what happened in the Six-Day War, when Israel had a decisive victory over four separate countries). Does this sound like a reasonable country and leader that we want to give economic incentives to? Keep in mind Iran is the second largest Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) member, so they aren’t exactly hurting with gas prices skyrocketing through the roof. No, it isn’t, and we shouldn’t have a Presidential candidate speaking of such a possibility.

In addition to that, Senator Obama would seek to give Iran membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO), something that is valued in the realm of world economies because of its ability to resolve economic disputes and impose trade rules. Aside from economic guarantees, Senator Obama wants to give safety guarantees. This is the same country that is being accused of supporting and supplying anti-American forces in Iraq (this from a candidate that “supports the troops”). These guarantees are not those of the sort that should be given pre-emptively. They should be given after-the-fact, after a country has shown trustworthiness, not a country that has shown itself to be counter to American policies.

It scares me to do this, but here I must agree with Senator Clinton - Senator Obama is not experienced enough to succeed in governing this country from a foreign policy perspective.