Meetings

The morning after, I'm reminded that the intriguing difference of opinions in the debate was Barack Obama saying he'd be happy to meet personally with the heads of Syria, Iran, whatever whereas Hillary Clinton emphasized that the Bush administration had sidelined diplomacy too much, but said she'd only go so far as to actually meet with these people as the end of a diplomatic process, lest the meeting become a propaganda coup. Dana Goldstein says "Edwards agreed with her," though what I saw was him mostly equivocating.

At any rate, it's not a very important issue as such, but perhaps a window into wider disagreements about national security. Clinton articulated a position of continuity with her husband's administration, while Obama was hinting at a more drastic departure.

Comments

I have to say that Clinton and Edwards were both right on this one. A meeting on that level would cost a lot of time and attention from the incoming administration. Why would you promise that without knowing that it would be a step in a larger process?

I could see that Edwards was trying to work around to a point about America acting to establish moral leadership and/or to talk about a presidential goodwill tour, but had time for neither.

Posted by Clark | July 24, 2007 8:24 AM

That was the lamest 'difference' ever. Obama said he meet with American adversaries and then Clinton said she'd meet them too - - but only after some staff work. Like Obama was going to meet Hugo Chavez on a whim for a Blizzard at Dairy Queen without telling the State Department.

Every meeting between world leaders has an element of propaganda. What the hell do you think every Tony Blair visit to the US these past 6 years has been about if not propaganda for George W. Bush? Bush plays Blair. Putin plays Bush. Every meeting is a mix of propaganda and policy.

The fact that even meet and greets with collegiate champion volleyball teams are the product of staff work is a given in modern politics. Giving Clinton or Edwards credit for saying they would only meet after having staff do the appropriate preparations is ridiculous. Obama's been to Russia to view nuclear sites and I assure you he didn't just book a flight on Aeroflot and send himself. It was staffed.

Posted by joejoejoe | July 24, 2007 9:00 AM

joejoejoe is wrong, Obama promised to talk with them no matter what. He's the one doing it as a propoganda ploy, to prove he'll talk to anyone. It's relatvely risky and using Presidential diplomacy for those puposes probably has pretty quickly diminishing returns.

Posted by AJ | July 24, 2007 9:20 AM

AJ - Obama did not say he would talk to Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea "no matter what".

Here's the entire exchange from the transcript:
QUESTION: In 1982, Anwar Sadat traveled to Israel, a trip that resulted in a peace agreement that has lasted ever since.

In the spirit of that type of bold leadership, would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?

COOPER: I should also point out that Stephen is in the crowd tonight.

Senator Obama?

OBAMA: I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them -- which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration -- is ridiculous.

(APPLAUSE)

Now, Ronald Reagan and Democratic presidents like JFK constantly spoke to Soviet Union at a time when Ronald Reagan called them an evil empire. And the reason is because they understood that we may not trust them and they may pose an extraordinary danger to this country, but we had the obligation to find areas where we can potentially move forward.

And I think that it is a disgrace that we have not spoken to them. We've been talking about Iraq -- one of the first things that I would do in terms of moving a diplomatic effort in the region forward is to send a signal that we need to talk to Iran and Syria because they're going to have responsibilities if Iraq collapses.

They have been acting irresponsibly up until this point. But if we tell them that we are not going to be a permanent occupying force, we are in a position to say that they are going to have to carry some weight, in terms of stabilizing the region.

COOPER: I just want to check in with Stephen if he believes he got an answer to his question.

QUESTION: I seem to have a microphone in my hand. Well, I'd be interested in knowing what Hillary has to say to that question.

COOPER: Senator Clinton?

CLINTON: Well, I will not promise to meet with the leaders of these countries during my first year. I will promise a very vigorous diplomatic effort because I think it is not that you promise a meeting at that high a level before you know what the intentions are.

I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes. I don't want to make a situation even worse. But I certainly agree that we need to get back to diplomacy, which has been turned into a bad word by this administration.

And I will purse very vigorous diplomacy.

And I will use a lot of high-level presidential envoys to test the waters, to feel the way. But certainly, we're not going to just have our president meet with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and, you know, the president of North Korea, Iran and Syria until we know better what the way forward would be.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Senator Edwards, would you meet with Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Kim Jong Il?

EDWARDS: Yes, and I think actually Senator Clinton's right though. Before that meeting takes place, we need to do the work, the diplomacy, to make sure that that meeting's not going to be used for propaganda purposes, will not be used to just beat down the United States of America in the world community.

But I think this is just a piece of a bigger question, which is, what do we actually do? What should the president of the United States do to restore America's moral leadership in the world. It's not enough just to lead with bad leaders. In addition to that, the world needs to hear from the president of the United States about who we are, what it is we represent.

COOPER: Time.
- - -

Newsflash to Hillary Clinton and John Edwards - the agenda of the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea is the same as the agenda of the leaders of Canada, France, Mexico, Japan, and South Africa - a mix of national and political self-interest. "Without precondition" means the negotiations take place AT THE MEETING, which is why you meet in the first place.

Posted by joejoejoe | July 24, 2007 9:58 AM

Here's a newsflash for you, Walter Cronkite - meeting without precondition sounds a whole hell of a lot like "no matter what". Obama said yes to this. He's right that we should pursue diplomacy with our enemies, but that doesn't mean that it's smart to make a campaign promise to personally meet with the leaders of America's enemies, without condition.

Posted by Clark | July 24, 2007 10:20 AM

"Here's a newsflash for you, Walter Cronkite - meeting without precondition sounds a whole hell of a lot like "no matter what"."

Are you successful in business? When you require that your conditions be met before a negotiation, you're pretty much saying you don't care about the negotiation because you just want the other side to just cave into your demands first. This is basic stuff, like not having a negotiation on only one issue. This type of stuff shouldn't have to be explained. We used to talk with the Kremlin all the time, just as we did with Beijing post-1973 (beforehand, we just hurt ourselves when not talking). Bush's greatest accomplishment was his administration's role in getting Libya to give up its WMD program through diplomacy. Even they didn't go "give up all of your nukes before we talk about you giving up your nukes." The type of policy you seem to be warming here is de facto the policy that says the diplomatic and economic embargo of Cuba is a good thing because it then meetings couldn't be used as a Marxist propaganda point, even if the embargoes actually strengthen Castro's hand in Cuba and further entrench his power.

Posted by Reality Man | July 24, 2007 10:30 AM

I think they wiffed a hanging curve ball. I think there is a correct answer to that question. It involves pretending no one mentioned Syria.

The answer is I would meet Ayatollah Khameini who is, in fact, in charge. I wouldn't participate in the pretense that Ahmedinijad is in charge, for one thing he is more extreme than Khameini, for another it implies accepting the false Iranian assertion that Iran is a Democracy.

This is a strong condition on a meeting AND a way to remind people that scaring the public with Ahmedinijad is participating in a charade.

Posted by Robert Waldmann | July 24, 2007 10:42 AM

Reality Man and Joejoejoe: You seem to be confusing Presidential summits with diplomacy. Nixon didn't just pop into China without pre-conditions, we never had a summit with the Soviets without pre-conditions and I don't remember Bush even ever meeting with Qaddafi.

State visits aren't run of the mill diplomacy, they are highly public and political affairs. Going to one of our opponents country in a symbolic visit may be a shrewed public diplomacy coup, jet setting around the world to red carpet photo ops with the rogues gallery less so.

Posted by AJ | July 24, 2007 10:52 AM

joejoejoe is right. Obama's response to a yes-or-no question in a debate is not a policy paper. He's not going to zip all around the world meeting with Kim Jong Il and Bashar Assad and Fidel Castro in February 2009. I mean, let's be serious here.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | July 24, 2007 10:53 AM

Cripes, are you people kidding me? Obama's point, such as it was, was that meeting a President is not some magical fucking mystery that confers orgasms on other leaders, and that withholding it on the grounds that it does is moronic. Whatever Obama says, there would be preconditions. Almost certainly, the end result of those initial meetings would be preordained. People who worry about "propaganda victories" from such meetings are nutters.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | July 24, 2007 11:04 AM

joejoejoe's first comment in this was fantastic, and the defenses of it by himself, reality man, and Elivs also high quality.

Posted by Michael | July 24, 2007 11:10 AM

It may have sounded like it, but in listening to the response and reading the transcript, it seems pretty clear to me that Obama was not talking about having personal, face-to-face visits with this cast of characters. He was impugning the current administration's apparent (or at least purported) lack of diplomatic engagement with undesirable administrations (hence his statement that "we" need to meet with them).

Hillary's take-down was rhetorically effective, I thought, but not substantive. Absent her response, I think it is unlikely that many watchers would have come away with the impression that Obama would spend his first year in office arranging meetings with Castro, Chavez and Kim Jong Il. I have no doubt this would be the RNC's gloss, but it was Hillary who imposed this construction upon Obama's words immediately after they were uttered--skillfully, in my view.

Posted by Matt | July 24, 2007 11:26 AM

Matt pretty much has it right. The most important point to remember in that exchange is that Obama went first. There's no policy disagreement on that particular point, but the way you frame your answer in that situation is always going to be influenced by what the person before you said. You can't just say "what he said." You have to either say "what he said but" or "what he said and", and "what he said and" probably wasn't the greatest option under the circumstances.

Posted by JP | July 24, 2007 11:36 AM

t may have sounded like it, but in listening to the response and reading the transcript, it seems pretty clear to me that Obama was not talking about having personal, face-to-face visits with this cast of characters. He was impugning the current administration's apparent (or at least purported) lack of diplomatic engagement with undesirable administrations (hence his statement that "we" need to meet with them).

Obama was asked a yes or no question, and he answered yes. He then proceeded to back it up by impugning the Bush Administration's lack of diplomacy, but he still answered the face to face question with a yes.

Posted by Clark | July 24, 2007 12:45 PM

"Obama was asked a yes or no question, and he answered yes. He then proceeded to back it up by impugning the Bush Administration's lack of diplomacy, but he still answered the face to face question with a yes."

At this point you're just playing rhetorical games without substance.

There's a difference between saying, "we'll only meet with people who are really in charge, such as Khameini," as a pre-condition, which is so obvious it's not even really a pre-condition and "we'll only meet with you if you give up terrorism" a la Bush. The latter is what Obama was attacking. We didn't tell Moscow and Beijing we would only meet with them if they gave up communism.

Posted by Reality Man | July 24, 2007 1:52 PM