Engaging with Iran

In an op-ed on Sunday's Washington Post, Brookings senior fellows Ivo Daalder and Philip Gordon make the case that Obama's approach towards dealing with Iran offers the best hope to rescue the US from the failed policies we've witnessed the last 7 1/2 years and we're doomed to re-live with a McCain presidency. Daalder and Gordon, the latter of which gave welcoming remarks to FPPFO's kick-off event last Monday, point out how wrong and misguided it is for us to assume that by facing the other way while waving sticks at them, we'll get anywhere with Iran:

"The right approach now is to end the anomaly of the United States not sitting at the table and to abandon the fiction that this dialogue is not a negotiation. Does anyone think that the six-party talks involving North Korea could have made any progress if the United States had refused to participate or if we insisted that North Korea completely dismantle its Yongbyon nuclear facility before we admitted that we were negotiating?"

The scholars also point out that Obama's position on Iran is often mischaracterized as a softening up to the Iranians. But

"what Obama's critics do not seem to realize is that the real penalties for Iran come in the form of economic and financial sanctions that can be increased even as negotiations go on, not in the form of a refusal to negotiate."

As Obama said at one of the early debates of the 08 primary season: "the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them -- which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration -- is ridiculous."