you are really going to suggest the us acts uniltarelly in regard to nkorea? i’m going to call you a hypocrite!

We want Iran to apologize for an act of war against us. Simply own up to it. Say they’re sorry, even if they’re not. We’ll sit down and talk with them as soon as they can clear that off the table. Instead, they tell us to go f*ck ourselves, and work to build their nuclear weapons capability.

So what, you say. They only want to be a (THE) regional power. They can’t and won’t hurt us. And since we can sit down to talk with North Korea, like Bubba Clinton did, then it’s all right for Obama to do the same with Iran. There’s a slight problem: we were and still are technically in a state of war against North Korea under the UN Security Council resolution of 1950 and our support for ally South Korea. We continue to have talks aimed at settling the war issue with North Korea in that little village of Panmunjom. Fun place to visit, by the way. The point is, we were already holding talks with North Korea as a result of our armistice even as Clinton agreed to pay out blackmail to Kim.

Never mind that no meaningful progress was accomplished with North Korea from the point Bubba gave them what they wanted. Sure, they said they stopped nuclear development, even allowed international inspectors in. But they continued ballistic research. And did they really quit the nuclear research effort? Anyhoo, their society became oh so open and transparent. Life became good in North Korea and peace blossomed on the peninsula — until Bush came along and ruined it all by cutting off the blackmail payments to Kim. Then Kim had a snit and actually fizzled a nuclear weapon at the world. And how did Bush handle it? He used diplomatic pressure to bring China and Russia — the North’s bestest and most long-standing supporters — into the effort to create a sustainable solution and meaningful transformation of the regional security picture. It’s not just U.S. appeasement of the little dictator in Pyongyang, now, it’s a regional effort to achieve stability. James, you show a remarkable lack of understanding on that particular issue.

Iran, now, they’re just peachy. They even told the Europeans to join us in f*cking ourselves. Has the Euro folks a bit worried, that does. But if we sit down with them and appease them just like Bubba did with North Korea, then we will have Peace In Our Time! However, unlike with North Korea — with whom we had direct talks as a result of that negotiated armistice — Iran has never owned up to their actions and agreed to enter into talks with us. Stupid Americans, insisting that Iran actually take responsibility for actions it committed. So we just be the adult, forget about 1979, and ask the mullahs to pretty please come sit at the table with us. Where we will what, exactly? Talk about the price of oil? What concessions do we give in order to just get the Iranians to sit down and talk? The Europeans, with all their vaunted soft power, have failed miserably at getting the Iranians to the table on the nuclear issue. How much more successful will the U.S. be, regardless of who occupies the White House?

Of course, if we don’t show “moral fortitude” and appease Iran, then they will become a nuclear power. A nuclear Iran won’t prompt the Saudis to go nuclear, nor Egypt, Syria, etc. Nope, the Iranians as the regional hegemon will be a peachy keen state of affairs. But we can blame any problems resulting from that on Bush, right? Because that’s what the Left is good at doing.

Gus, “no one cares about W’s religious rhetoric anymore” — would that be because he is a lame duck with an opposition Congress and in his final year of office? But a year, two years ago the people (on the left) were in a rage over Bush’s religious references. So how do you describe Ahmedinejad? He’s certainly no lame duck, and the mullahs are certainly not in the opposition party. Why do you so readily discount his religious rantings? I remind you that the American president is severely constrained by law and tradition — whereas Iran is actually a theocracy and Ahmedinejad’s rantings are actually part of that theocratic mission. Oh, I see, “it is just rhetoric to get the religious citizenry on their side.” So the mullahs need to have Ahmedinejad give a religious pep talk at the UN in order to make the Iranian citizenry happy. Because they don’t already see enough of the mullah’s propaganda in the state-run media. I suppose that’s why Hitler made some of his speeches, too. He never really meant what he said, that was just to keep the SS pumped about their cause. Or Kruschev with his shoe-pounding on the podium. That was to make the Soviet rank-and-file stand up and cheer for the Rodina! It wasn’t an actual threat to bury us at all. These dictators are just so tragically misunderstood!

And James — did you catch that it was Jimmy Carter, the man who is the poster child for Leftist lunacy, who set the conditions for talking with Iran? It is not “the right’s position” — it is the policy of the United States as set by one of the most liberal presidents in recent memory.

Obama, if elected, won’t appease anybody. He just won’t, and you’re stupid and dishonest to suggest he will. Maybe he will talk to them, but he won’t appease them. He’s not a fucking idiot.

“how long before he raises the issue of reparations?”
Oh, STFU. Again, not gonna happen.

Yup: “Yet many of these same academics go ballistic about GWB and his references to his religious beliefs”
No one cares about W’s religious rhetoric anymore.

“Iran, as lead by the mullahs who hold true power, is a rational actor. Or so I am continually told.”
As it worked for W, it is just rhetoric to get the religious citizenry on their side. Iran is rational in the sense of not being so stupid as to bomb Israel, as that would bring about their own destruction.