The Price of Talk, McCain vs BO on Iran

RealClearPolitics - Articles - McCain's Speech to AIPAC

The whole speech is worth reading, but this excerpt is especially revealing. BO is allowed by the MSM to utter any whim and their braying support follows immediately with no concern for the potential harm that could result. What harm could there be in talking? McCain has been around long enough, and even spent some time in prison camps himself with "patriots" like Jane Fonda "just talking" to know that while talk is often cheap, only the naive believe that it can't also be costly beyond measure.

What happens the moment after Tel Aviv is incinerated by an H-bomb? Does everyone negotiate some more? Naturally, all the talk by the Defeatocrats on Iraq hasn't done anything to encourage the folks we are fighting -- it is perfectly fine for leader of the Senate to state that "we have lost in Iraq" months before the surge forces even get there. Remember when it was CERTAIN that Iraq was in "civil war", and the situation was "hopeless"?

The Iranians have spent years working toward a nuclear program. And
the idea that they now seek nuclear weapons because we refuse to engage
in presidential-level talks is a serious misreading of history. In
reality, a series of administrations have tried to talk to Iran, and
none tried harder than the Clinton administration. In 1998, the
secretary of state made a public overture to the Iranians, laid out a
roadmap to normal relations, and for two years tried to engage. The
Clinton administration even lifted some sanctions, and Secretary
Albright apologized for American actions going back to the 1950s. But
even under President Khatami -- a man by all accounts less radical than
the current president -- Iran rejected these overtures.

Even so, we hear talk of a meeting with the Iranian leadership
offered up as if it were some sudden inspiration, a bold new idea that
somehow nobody has ever thought of before. Yet it's hard to see what
such a summit with President Ahmadinejad would actually gain, except an
earful of anti-Semitic rants, and a worldwide audience for a man who
denies one Holocaust and talks before frenzied crowds about starting
another. Such a spectacle would harm Iranian moderates and dissidents,
as the radicals and hardliners strengthen their position and suddenly
acquire the appearance of respectability.