A female reporter asked Bush this morning (9-15-06) if he would be willing to meet face to face with the leader of Iran. Bush gave a curt “No” answer followed by a few words of explanation.



http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...20060915-2.html

Question for Debate

Do you agree with Bush’s decision not to meet face to face with Ahmadinejad? Why or why not?

Do you agree with Bush’s decision not to meet face to face with Ahmadinejad? Why or why not?

Should FDR have invited Hitler over for breakfast?

The US and Iran are at a standoff. We have trade sanctions on them dating back to the 1980s. We have no formal diplomatic relations.

What could Bush gain by meeting with him?

In my mind, Ahmadinejad is a crazy fanatic and meeting with him could actually be a danger to the President. I'm serious about this. The guy's a nut and has dreams of Armageddon. I wouldn't trust him to the extent that I speak Arabic.

Bush would gain nothing by meeting with Ahmadinejad, and Ahmadinejad would gain a great deal.

Bush is doing the right thing here.

How honest is this topic?
Is that all it takes for state leaders to meet with one another, a reporters asking? I doubt this was a serious request of engagement, it is not like this reporter is acting as a neutral party to Iranian, US diplomacy. It is not as if Bush was really offered this option and then really refused it, it is just pretending.

I think the topic should be amended to show that his is just a hypothesis or possibility not something that actually happened.

If not I guess we could also ask every one to comment on the fact Ahmadinejad refuses to meet with Bush.

Amlord, I agree with you on the point that Bush has nothing to gain from meeting Ahmadinejad. This administration's policy is to not allow Iran to have nuclear energy, noticed I did not say nuclear weapon. Any discussion on this topic is irrelevant since the Bush Administration's position will not change.
http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/arti...hp?storyid=1960
That is a declarative statement, one that does not allow for much debate or flexibility.

The Bush administration is scaring the United States citizens (including yourself) to believe that Pres. Ahmadinejad is pursuing the development of a nuclear weapon and is somehow a danger to U.S. security. Just like he did with Saddam Hussein.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2005Jan20.html

Here is a transcript of the show Imus in the Morning which the above story references.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1324613/posts


The statements made by Cheney in this interview do not deny Iran the right to nuclear energy, he wants basically, and rightly so, to know if they are producing weapons with that technology. There is no admission of facts on this, such as the "stockpiles" assertion that was made about Iraq. Vice Pres. Cheney clearly does not know whether or not their nuclear facilities are being used for anything other than nuclear power. Then he comments on the Iranian's support of Hezbollah and makes the broad association of labeling Hezbollah as terrorists. I acquiesce, Hezbollah is among other things a terrorist group, but Hezbollah is not an adversary of the United States, they are Israel's problem, al Qaeda is our concern. There is no mention of Iran's support for Al Qaeda, only broad generalizations about terror. It is important to be clear about who our enemies are. He refers to combination as the unknown intentions of Iran's nuclear program and Iran's support of terrorism. That's a tangential connection at best and one that really does not directly concern the United States citizens.

But time after time, Pres. Ahmadinejad has denied that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. To the point that CNN was banned for misrepresenting Pres. Ahmadinejad comments regarding nuclear energy.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20060116/43027341.html

CNN later apologized, thus admitting that Pres. Ahmadinejad did not say nuclear weapons.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4617754.stm

Here are reasons to believe the Iranian's other than the Bush Adminstration's position. The IAEA wrote a letter of protest regarding a report on Iran's nuclear program from a Congressional committee. Given the recent history, the IAEA has proved to be a more reliable source than US intelligence.http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/14092006/6/n-wo...eport-iran.html
Reason #2, dating back to 2005.
http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=9439
The State Department criticized the IAEA because they put out a report that Iran had not been trying to produce weapons, which the U.S. claims that they have. On the surface this no more than a "He said-She said" but.....
That is a very friendly group of scientists as far as the United States is concerned.

Furthermore, Pres. Ahmadinejad is the furthest thing from crazy. That statement about him being crazy is completely dismissive and I wonder if you have made any attempt to understand his positions regarding Israel, the Holocaust, and peace in the region.

Barnaby, your pretense at being intellectually honest is transparent. Bush clearly stated that he respects the Iranian people and has nothing against producing nuclear power. Furthermore you omit the option of letting Russian enrich uranium for Iran which was rejected by Iran, showing that they are not necessarily seeking only nuclear power for energy purposes. The Russians were quite disappointed with this rejection. I think you need to go back and review what the IAEA has said. From what I've read the IAEA cannot give them a complete clean bill of health

I agree with Amlord that Bush has nothing to gain from meeting with Ahmadinejad, but possibly for different reasons. Bush set up parameters for meeting and is staying true to these. If he meets with him before the parameters are met he is sending the signal that he is at a loss, desperate or that Ahmadinejad otherwise has a legitimate reason for refusing to concede some ground.

On the other hand, it seems to me that Bush never intended to meet with him because he asked for something he knew he would not get. If he were truly interested in resolving the issue through partnership with the Iranian leadership he would have asked for something in between, a smaller concession, thus allowing Iran some political wiggle room. This IS how diplomacy works: in bits and pieces, slow and with many small concessions. History does not look kindly on acts of diplomacy that were one-sided in their execution (Look at Versailles for a perfect example)




Not in 1939, but history will never know if FDR could have changed the course of WWII by meeting with him in 1936 or 1937. You know the old saying about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer....
We certainly would have done better to meet with Ho Chi Minh when he was trying to wrestle Viet Nam from the French in order to set up a democratic government.
And FDR was pretty agressive in his associations with Joseph "Uncle Joe" Stalin during the same time period.

In my opinion it is foolish to base your diplomacy and international posture on religious grounds, the type of government of the country or its economic structure. Be they communist, dictatorial or whatever, if we can benefit from having a good relationship with them then we should start small and create that relationship.
If we can use our huge economic might to wage war on their ideals, instead of planes and bombs, then so much the better.


In the end, it is now impossible for Bush to meet with Ahmadinejad without giving the appearance of a victory for Iran. It didn't have to be that way...

You may not be aware of the standing operating procedure of U.S. negotiations. In 1993 North Korea threatened to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which prompted Pres. Clinton to negotiate the Agreed Framework. Tenets of the Agreed Framework were:
1. DPRK's graphite-moderated nuclear power plants, which could easily produce weapons grade plutonium, would be replaced with light water reactor (LWR) power plants by a target date of 2003.

2. Oil for heating and electricity production would be provided while DPRK's reactors were shut down, until completion of the first LWR power unit.

In this article, it is explained that the consortium that was supposed to provide the Light Water Reactors to North Korea said that North Korea had violated the Agreed Framework because of a "secret" operations, which the North Koreans denied. Funny thing is though, that in 2002, eight years after the Agreed Framework was signed and months prior to the deadline of honoring that Framework, the consortium pulls an end around on the North Koreans. I think it is kind of strange that the consortium could not come up with at least ONE reactor in eight years.
http://www.tiscali.co.uk/news/newswire.php...ors.html?page=2

Then in this chronological breakdown, Pres. Bush explains, on Nov. 14th, 2002, that the U.S. was no longer obligated to send oil to North Korea because they had violated the Agreed Framework. So North Korea has no Light Water Reactors and no oil and they are right back to where they were in 1993.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_n...weapons_program
Here is the Agreed Framework.
http://www.isis-online.org/publications/dprk/book/af.html

Now may be tempted to say, but Kim Jong il is crazy. And so is Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and so is Saddam Hussein, and so was Yassar Arafat, I mean really, they are all a bunch of crazies. Except of course the United States of America. When you think everyone around you is crazy, maybe, just maybe, you're the crazy one.

So I have broken down how the U.S. operates. The Iranians are no fools. They took notice of this trickery. It is the same type of committment from Russia and the United States. Iran stops enriching uranium, disbands its' program and Russia will provide them with reactors. If I were the Iranian President, I would reject such a deal as well. You cannot trust the Russians or the Americans to provide you with a technology that they clearly do not want you to have.

It wasn't our trickery that was offered, it was Russian trickery that Iran goes along with on a daily basis. The Russian offer to make fuel for them was a way out of a corner that would thwart UN sanctions. Now the Iranian president thinks he's calling bluffs by acting big, showing up at the UN and challenging Bush to a debate. The Iranian president needs to remember that the deal with Korea was with the Clinton Administration, he's dealing with Bush. Bush won't flinch when he goes "Boo". I don't want a war over there, but Iran should be careful not to do anything stupid. I think Hugo Chavez just shot both himself and Ahmadinejad in the foot. It may not appear that way, but things in politics usual aren't what they seem. I think the El Diablo comment will come back to haunt him, and the UN.

You quoted me earlier and included this article, so I assumed you read it:
http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/arti...hp?storyid=1960
In it, it says:

So you believe that the Iranians should trust Russia, even though Russia does not trust Iran, according to George W. Bush. I do not believe that is the case. And just exactly how does Iran go along with Russian trickery on a daily basis? Please explain that statement.

Pres. Ahmadinejad is not calling any bluffs here, he believes that they have a right to this technology. We have the technology, so why shouldn't they? Here is Pres. Ahmadinejad speech to the U.N. In there he explains his thinking regarding their goal of obtaining nuclear energy.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6107339

There is only two debatable points in this paragraph. One, whether or not he is committed to the NPT and two, are their activities transparent? On the first point, he states that he is committed to the NPT, now, you need to prove he is not committed, with what evidence do you have to substantiate that he is indeed producing Nuclear Weapons? I would love to see this evidence, and so would the State Department, because they don't have any to go off of themselves.

Secondly, are their activities transparent? Well, according to the United States they are not, but the IAEA, the actually group that does the investigations and determines compliance suggests that we are misguided in our views.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/14092006/6/n-wo...eport-iran.html
I posted this earlier, maybe you didn't bother to read it. So I'll leave a quotation for you.
AND

We have the United States Congress stating that Iran's nuclear program is being used for weapons and the IAEA saying that we are fabricating that. Well, I think the IAEA would know better and has proven, based on the Iraq War intelligence, that they are a more reliable source. The guy has reached out to Bush and is trying to avoid war, Bush on the other hand, is rejecting negotiations and is working to further complicate our relations with Iran. Bush wants war.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8...1568076,00.html


Now that the Baker/Hamilton Commission has called for independent talks with not only Iran, but Syria, I think it is time to resurrect this thread.

Depending on one's point of view, Bush is either being wise or a pigheaded, inarticulate clown. Seeing little evidence of wisdom, the last six years, I opt for the latter.