Pre-Conditions Preperations Battle
The back and forth between the McCain and Obama camps about negotiations between the future president and the leaders of foreign dictatorships, such as Ahmadinejad in Iran and Castro in Cuba, addresses a real substantive difference in foreign for these two candidates. This clip from the CNN YouTube debate answers the question if Senator Obama will meet with dictators in the first year of his presidency.
Senator Obama has also stated that he wouldn’t require pre-conditions before negotiating with these dictators, but later stated that there would be preparations. There are several troubling things about this. First, as Senator Clinton pointed out in the debate, a president shouldn’t guarantee a meeting in their first year as they could be used as a pawn for propaganda purposes. Second, the comparisons between Iran and the Soviet Union are weak. The situations are very different, and not recognizing that is deeply troubling. Third, citing that ‘preparations’ but not ‘pre-conditions’ are needed for a presidential meeting is political tap dancing. What does that mean? Most everything in life requires preparation. He’s either trying to back out of a policy that even Democrats agree is foolish, or he’s still believes in this policy and is instead trying to push the question aside.
The Obama campaign instead of clarifying its own position has muddled the issue by attacking Senator McCain. First, Senator McCain was accused of saying that he would meet with Hamas without pre-conditions. This was proven untrue. The statement from Senator McCain said that since Hamas was elected by the Palestinians that they would have to be ‘dealt with’ as the leader of that government. That was not a promise of negotiations. Second, they accused Senator McCain of supporting normalization in relations with Cuba. However, Senator McCain stated that this was to happen only if Cuba took steps to embrace Democracy (a pre-condition). Finally, throughout this back and forth examples have been given where the U.S. government engages in diplomacy at lower levels of government. This however, is not the issue. Senator McCain’s point wasn’t that there should be no diplomatic relations; it was that the President of the United States should not be guaranteeing meetings without preconditions. Senator Obama has stated that Senator McCain’s views are naïve and that one shouldn’t be afraid to meet with foreign leaders. This may be what really shows how ‘in the weeds’ Senator Obama is in regards foreign policy. Numerous people from both sides of the isle have noted how foolish Senator Obama’s diplomacy policy is; yet he still accuses Senator McCain of naiveté. Now there may be some criticisms that the Obama campaign will be able to make stick to Senator McCain, but it’s hard to believe that calling him scared and naïve will ring true with anyone.
May 21st, 2008
