Bill Clinton: U.S. should talk to Iran

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060921/ap_on_go_ot/clinton_iran_2


WASHINGTON - Former
President Clinton said Thursday the U.S. should try talking to
Iran about its nuclear weapons ambitions without imposing a lot of conditions.


"If you think you might have trouble with somebody, and God forbid if you think it could lead to a military confrontation, then there needs to be the maximum amount of contact beforehand," Clinton said in an interview with NBC's "Today" show.

The Bush administration has refused to hold direct talks with Iran until it agrees to suspend enrichment of uranium, which the U.S. fears will be used to build nuclear weapons.

"The United States should not be afraid to talk to anyone. They should not be reluctant and shouldn't have too many conditions," said Clinton, who said his own offer to meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's predecessor had been rebuffed.

The U.S. and allies have offered Iran a package of incentives in return for its agreement to stop uranium enrichment. But Iran has given no definitive response and missed an Aug. 31
U.N. Security Council deadline to halt uranium enrichment, which Iran says is for generating electricity.

Iran and the United States have had no direct diplomatic relations since 1979. That's when Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held its occupants hostage for 444 days to protest Washington's refusal to hand over the toppled shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

President Bush and Ahmadinejad used separate appearances at the U.N. General Assembly in New York this week to spar over Tehran's nuclear program, but they avoided any personal contact.

In May, Ahmadinejad sent a letter seeking a debate with Bush, but it was laced with old grievances against America and included a long list of Iranian demands.

Clinton said although he would like to see more negotiation with Iran, Bush's reluctance to personally meet with Ahmadinejad was understandable.

"I think we should have some contacts with them," Clinton said. "I'm not sure the president is the place to start."

In an interview broadcast Thursday on National Public Radio, Clinton said, " ... I still believe that, based on all my Iranian friends in America, what they say is that the vast majority of Iranian citizens want to have good relationships with the United States and the West and do not want to be at odds."

"But they all believe basically that if any other country has a right to nuclear power, they do too, so we have to work through that and I, I hope we can do it in a peaceful way," he said.

 

Bill Clinton 'old hand' arguably the best political negotiator in the World today
I saw the interview with Bill as always he talks a lot of sense and knowledgable understanding of complex international affairs

 

All talk, no do. That's how the world is today.

Besides, we can't trust terrorists.

 

This is probably true; but the voice of the citizens doesn't matter very much. Its the leadership that's the problem.

I think that sums up my problem with the current approach to foreign policy these days. Did the majority of german civilians want to be carpet bombed in WW2? Did the japanese people want to be nuked? Probably not. But that didn't stop it from happening. When the goal is your survival or theirs; and their "silent majority" won't stand up, what they want matters very little.

Sidebar on clinton. Check this video from his interview with Chris Walllace coming sunday:
http://hotair.com/archives/2006/09/22/video-clinton-flips-out-over-osama-hunt-on-fox-news-sunday/

 

I'd rather have him be the Secretary-General of the United Nations, than Kofi. I saw the interview as well; he acts very reasonable (within the interview), and extremely civil. I wouldn't agree with a great deal of his past [no, not Monica], but I do think Bush is wrong in not having some sort of interaction with Iran.

I don't want to just wait to the point in time when violence is the only option. It's too rhetorical as-is, it needs to be direct and honest. If we talk and nothing good comes of it after years and years, then atleast we can say we did all we could do to revert such.

 

It seems crazy to talk about going to war with a country when you won't even talk to them.

Is open negoations a good way to gain support , and at least show that we are the more reasonible side

 

Your buddy bin Laden never really talked to us... well... in a 2-way conversation, (and gee, look who ignored it and what happened 4 years later.) Does that mean they are the more reasonable side?

 

dummy bin laden is just a terrorist, he is not a state leader, he does not reprsent a country of millions of people

 

But a force of at least thousands. Which is all that matters. Generally countries have military-like forces, but a few select small ones are good examples that don't (have any noticable force). Those countries are not a threat to go to war with.

Military/terrorist forces are. Not the countries themselves.

 

Iran is not uncivilized folk like Bin Laden. Don't assume all Middle Eastern countries are terrorist warmongers that can't be talked to. If Iran was a European nation, talks would be held.

So instead of talking to a civilized leader, you'd rather take the chances of pissing him off? Knowing the president, though, his talking WOULD probably piss him off.

 

As opposed to Conservatives who are "all do, no think."

Go ahead and enter a war with Iran, you'd get slaughtered. You think Iraq is tough? HAH! You ain't seen nothin yet.

Convential wisdom is that the Iranians are still 10 years away from having a bomb, and that's without a missile system to launch it anywhere which would take much longer. (see North Korea) Hopefully it'll only be a couple of years till you guys have a Democratic President to clean up this mess. (and many many many many many others)

What's the harm in talking though? You talk, you don't like what they have to say then you can bomb them to make yourselves feel big.

 

weird...........

 

I'm not assuming, you're just putting words in my mouth. Iran is actually very uncivilized... chopping people's heads off for not agreeing with their leader's terrorist regime, building nuclear weapons, in the middle of a heated world conflict, and not afraid to use them... yeah, sorry, very civilized

What do you expect?

"Hey! How's it goin?y"
"Not bad, our nukes are almost ready. What about you?"
"Well we want you to stop making nukes."
"And what if we don't?"
"We'll bomb your military and nuclear outposts into oblivian."
"Auuughghhhh! Not that!!! Anything but that!!!"
"Okay, then we'll just sit here and negotiate. Did you talk to the UN at all?"
"Heck yeah, they just want to put economic sanctions on us, yet they haven't yet "
"Go figure, I guess we'll have to do that for them."
"Hahaha, with what military forces? All your lemmings are caught up in Iraq with no means to win because of your country's 'political correctness'. Over here, we do what it takes to win ."
"Aye, true, okay, how about this: you stop making nukes and we will pull out of Iraq by the middle of next year."
"Uhhhh sure! Sounds great! We'll disarm immediately and wait for you to pull your guys out."
"Okay, bye!"
"See ya later!"


...woopdie-do.

As opposed to democrats who are "no think, no do."

Exactly my point. If we don't enter war with them they'll just get stronger and eventually they'll use their nukes. They're not just asking for attention like N. Korea is.

Convential wisdom for convential bombs will work fine. But convential wisdom for NUCLEAR bombs, is a fatal mistake. They already have the technology to carry the nukes and refineries to enrich the uranium, methods of transportation, access to the uranium, and other places to assemble the uranium. Now, all it takes is a little time. But not 10 years.

As I said before, N. Korea is just asking for attention, they are not a real threat - yet. Iran is in the middle of a huge world conflict, though, which is very worrysome. If they get nukes they'll probably be making all the calls as for major military action in the middle east, unless we stop them.

It was a democratic President that got us into this mess - Osama bin Laden declared war in 1997 on the United States as a video broadcast from Al Jazeera TV. Clinton ignored it, thinking the threat did not exist, but even more CIA intelligence confirmed an Al Qaeda threat was definitely real. 4 years later, President Bush has to pay the price by sending troops to fight those that attacked us so liberals like you can have the freedom to say the stupid things you do.

The harm in talking is it can make us seem like pushovers. Take the UN for example. They don't really DO anything anymore. They all talk. They no do. Or very little, weak do. The UN is a pushover.

Period.

 

Are you a script writer? If not, you should. - Great Post -

 

or maybe they will think we have small penis

 

Can you prove it or even provide any evidence of it or is this just more or the make believe right-wing paranoia being spread around as the truth

 

Proof. Something always demanded when yo discusses terrorists and terrorist organizations.

Proof. Something never asked for when incriminating soldiers, the US government or anything yo-yo assumes must be true.

 

Your blindness is overpowering, yo-yo They are threatening to using them, admitting to it, and the whole world (even the UN, wow.) is starting to freak out about the whole deal. Of course, in your eyes, there is no threat because your buddy is the head of their regime over there.

Proof: yo-yo is ignorant. Period

 

feel free to post some links to back up stuff you say, compuserve

 

One of the most effective business strategies is to change policies and procedures when something isn't working.

politicians have a harder time doing that then businesses but they still can. When an issue is as big and important as national security you would think that politicians would take it more seriously than stand on one stupid principle and not exhaust many different strategies to see which works best to best protect our interests.

Regardless, currently it is safe to say that US allies and others are speaking to Iran and other enemies and probably somewhat trying to advance our agenda, though the conversations aren't direct. It's possible that secret conversations could occur at any time. Other governments have done3 this at various times.

One rediculous comment pushed by CompuXP was to blame the current conditions on Clinton:

First that is Monday morning quaterbacking. Second that is stupid political cr@p of blaming everything on the other party. THIRD, and most coherently, there is ample evidence showing that the Bush administration was doing very little with regard to anti-terrorism, during 2001 prior to 9/11

It would be easy to enter into discussions with a very clear concept of our needs and wants and then working every way possible to determine if there was some kind of negotiable solution.

There might not be. Furthermore, as an American, negotiating with an Iranian President who avows that we, are allies, the West, and Israel, are all enemies makes it very clear that we should limit our expectations and trust....but it is worthwhile to give it a try to see if something can be accomplished.

Dave