Joshua Marshall on talking to Iran

The much-anticipated meeting between the United States and Iran, their "first high profile, face-to-face talks in nearly three decades," seems to have gone off smoothly in Baghdad today (though it certainly didn't produce any breakthroughs):

The meeting between Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker of the United States and Ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qumi of Iran — held in the offices of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, in the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad — produced no agreements nor a promise of a follow-up meeting between the two nations, officials said.

But Mr. Crocker told a news conference that the talks “proceeded positively.”

As you may recall, I'm of the opinion that this meeting between the United States and Iran was long overdue:

I wholeheartedly approve this belated move. That isn't to say that I have much faith in the Iranian government; odds are that nothing much will come of this. It's just that if there is any possibility that the Iranians could be convinced/bribed to tone down their activities in Iraq, we should find out. Maybe the price would be too high; maybe they really are totally committed to creating chaos in Iraq. But the only way to know for sure is to talk to them.

So I will give grudging some praise to the administration for finally coming to their senses. Joshua Marshall of Talking Points Memo isn't in such a forgiving mood:

I don't disagree with the diplomatic decision, but it's worth noting that after years of saying talks with Iran would be reckless and irresponsible, the Bush gang is grudgingly accepting the reality that Dems have been pushing for quite a while.

Would it be rude to point out how often this has happened of late? Dems said Bush should talk directly to Syria; Bush said Dems were weak to even suggest it; and Bush eventually came around. Dems said Bush should talk to North Korea and use Clinton's Agreed Framework as a model for negotiations; Bush said this was out of the question; and Bush eventually came around. Dems said Bush should increase the size of the U.S. military; Bush said this was unnecessary; and Bush eventually came around.

And Dems said Bush should engage Iran in direct talks, particularly on Iraq. It took a while, but the president came around on this, too.

For years, all we've heard from the right is that Bush is a bold visionary when it comes to foreign policy, and Dems are weak and clueless. And yet, here we are, watching the White House embrace the Dems' approach on most of the nation's major foreign policy challenges.

Now, if Bush could just bring himself to accept the Democratic line on Iraq, too, we'd really see some progress.

Bush may not be adopting the Democratic line on Iraq, but he is making noises about finally accepting the recommendations of the bi-partisan Iraq Study Group. Given the President's track record of failures and reversals, it's simply astonishing how eagerly the Republican candidates for 2008 have embraced his foreign policy.

Romney blunder on Muslim Brotherhood

Matthew Yglesias points out a major blunder by Romney in last night's debate:

While Mitt Romney impressed me and most other reporters with his presentation, it would be good for some to observe that he also put forward a completely insane policy idea on the leading issue of the day:

We’ll move everything to get him. But I don’t want to buy into the Democratic pitch, that this is all about one person, Osama bin Laden. Because after we get him, there’s going to be another and another. This is about Shi’a and Sunni. This is about Hezbollah and Hamas and al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. This is the worldwide jihadist effort to try and cause the collapse of all moderate Islamic governments and replace them with a caliphate.

To put it bluntly, the trouble here is that the Muslim Brotherhood just isn't a violent terrorist organization, and certainly doesn't commit acts of violence against the United States. It's an extremely traditionalist multinational civil society organization. It's true that a lot of violent types used to be in the Brotherhood and now they're in terrorist groups, but used to be is the key phrase here, they left the Brotherhood because the Brotherhood wouldn't sign on for their agenda. In one clause, Romney's just gone and broadened the war to include a huge new category of people who have no intention of waging war against the United States or even against Israel.

...

Mitt Romney displayed zero understanding of political Islam or global terrorism, none of his Republican opponents called him on it, and as far as I know, nobody in the press (the same press, you'll recall, that's concerned with the Pursuit of Truth above all else) bothered to notice.

I remembering being surprised when Romney mentioned the Muslim Brotherhood, but I just assumed he was tossing out the names of as many Islamic political organizations as he could and got a little excited. I don't think Romney would actually be dumb enough to make opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood one of the pillars of his foreign policy. The organization may not be secular like our "friend" President Mubarak of Egypt, but, unlike him, they are willing to work within a democratic system.

Andrew Sullivan on the debate and foreign policy

Andrew Sullivan agrees that McCain won the debate. But he isn't too happy with what passes for foreign policy these days:

very little nuance, very little subtlety, almost no fresh thinking. Conservatism now means simply projecting something called "strength" rather than articulating something called strategy. On the question of thinking through the lessons of Iraq, they seemed frozen. On the question of Iran, they never seemed to include any understanding of what constraints Iraq has placed on us. Just bomb them and kill them and we'll "win". That was about as sophisticated as it got (with the modest exception of McCjavascript:void(0)
Publishain's endorsement of Petraeus). And these people seem more aware of the Islamist threat than the Democrats. That's the state of the country and those entrusted with its defense.

With regards to the Islamist threat, just substitute "are absolutely obsessed with and scared witless by" in the place of "seem more aware of" and I agree 100%.