Bring on the Foreign Policy Debate, Indeed.

Or, alternately, Wall Street Journal Opinion Page: You Never Fail Me for Incendiary Commentary to Rant About.

John Bolton, the Bush crony that got appointed to the UN for the usually nonsensical reasons (as he was a very outspoken critic of the UN's sheer existence before his appointment), wrote
a piece for the Journal's Monday Op-Ed. A good summary of his characterization of Obama's stance on negotiations with hostile states/organizations:

"The real debate is radically different. On one side are those who believe that negotiations should be used to resolve international disputes 99% of the time. That is where I am, and where I think Mr. McCain is. On the other side are those like Mr. Obama, who apparently want to use negotiations 100% of the time. It is the 100%-ers who suffer from an obsession that is naïve and dangerous.

Negotiation is not a policy. It is a technique. Saying that one favors negotiation with, say, Iran, has no more intellectual content than saying one favors using a spoon. For what? Under what circumstances? With what objectives? On these specifics, Mr. Obama has been consistently sketchy."

This characterization that Obama's policy on negotiations at all lacks nuance or is a topic that has been avoided is either terribly unfair or terribly uninformed (I'm guessing the former, since he wrote an op-ed on it, and I would only assume that he has the integrity to research).

Bolton made a particular point out of Obama's rejection of "preconditions." Here's a really good quote explaining how Bolton artfully (but falsely) reframed the debate. Obama said "Understand what the question was. The question was a very specific question. Would you meet without preconditions? Preconditions as it applies to a country like Iran for example was a term of art. Because this administration has been very clear that it will not have direct negotiations with Iran until Iran has meet preconditions that are essentially what Iran and many other observers would view as the subject of the negotiations. For example, their nuclear program. The point is that I would not refuse to meet until they agree to every position that we want. But that doesn't mean that we would not have preparation, and the preparation would involve starting with low level-lower level diplomatic contacts..." etc about standard diplomatic practice.

Just take a look here and read through the dozens of other quotes from Obama about what he considered appropriate ways of dealing with aggressive nations/groups.

Now, in one or two of those quotes, Hugo Chavez is listed among Kim Jong Il and Ahmadinejad (yes! spelled it right on the first try!), which, let me tell you, I take issue with. Because seriously...Venezuela is no threat to America and Chavez is as much a goofball as he is an ideologue, and most of all, he just wants to alleviate poverty and finally put an end to the Monroe Doctrine (and the Truman Doctrine, while we're at it). But that's a conversation for another day.