High Seas wrote:The boy Jonathan and his whole kin should be grateful for that fate - if he had been, say, Iranian, he would have fried; no question about it. Yet Iran never spied on the US, bombarded a US ship, or spent the last 60 years on the beg-borrow-blackmail-steal program. And in the immortal words of Sherlock Holmes: "There is nothing lower than a blackmailer."
Some "elements" (as you put it) in the US are getting so fed up with this monstrous, costly, and cumulative catastrophe in the near East, that Obama, whatever his faults, sounds a lot better than his Republican opponent because he grasps that one single element of foreign policy (and domestic counterintelligence).
That was the point. Sorry I wasn't clearer before.
I believe that the Administration has gone too far in publicly criticizing the government of Iran and in calling for sanctions over their nuclear weapons program, while, at the same time, refusing to speak officially with them -- a self-defeating combination. Their critics here have a real point in noting the contradiction inherent in these two positions and its bad effects. I can also think of many good reasons for avoiding unnecessary public associations with the present government of Iran, whose president has such an evident appetite for theatrics and thumbing his nose at us. It is a complex situation that requires a more complex and subtile policy than what we have done so far.
In contrast, the Administration has very effectively managed a complex dialogue with China, Japan, South Korea, and North Korea; occasionally involving a one-on-one dialogue with Pyonyang, when that was crucial, but otherwise sticking to the five-party talks which have been the key to our strategy. It is unfortunate that this level of skill and subtilty has not also been applied to Iran. (It is possible that the political "third rail" of the Israeli lobby may be involved here. Certainly there is plenty of evidence th believe they have an excessive influence on the Bush Administration.)
