Man the barricades! Get out your trusty AR-15 or sniper rifle! The Muslims are coming! The Muslims are coming!
Oh. It’s just a lot of talk? Nevermind.
US President Barack Obama has already used experts within the last few months to hold high-level but discreet talks with both Iran and Syria, organizers of the meetings told AFP. […]
[E]ven before winning the November 4 election, Obama unofficially used what experts call “track two” discussions to approach America’s two foes in the region.
Nuclear non-proliferation experts had several “very, very high-level” contacts in the last few months with Iranian leaders, said Jeffrey Boutwell, executive director for the US branch of the Pugwash group, an international organization of scientists which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995.
Former defense secretary William Perry, who served in Obama’s election campaign, participated in some of these meetings focused on “a wide range of issues that separate Iran from the West: not only their nuclear program but the Middle East peace process, Persian Gulf issues,” Boutwell told AFP.
Seriously, I know this has got to have our good friends on the right extremely riled up and foaming at their mouths about this dastardly deed, but the hard work of diplomacy is usually done behind the scenes, and it takes time. Time to build relationships. Time to build trust. Time to define the objectives and goals of all the parties involved. Obama would have been derelict if he had not begun discussions with Iran and Syria when he did.
It was after all, President Bush’s own Iraq Study Group which recommended we talk to Syria and Iran, rather than fight them. It’s good to see that our current President is willing to follow through on the advice of foreign policy experts and use diplomacy rather than cling to a failed strategy of deploying our military to solve all our outstanding foreign relations concerns in the Middle east. But then, that’s why a majority of the American people elected him and not Senator “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” McCain.
