Obama: "I'm ready to negotiate with you, Iran." Iran: "Fuck you."

[TheMercenary]

My guess is they have learned from the NK's or visa versa. Stall, delay, lie, cheat, do whatever the hell you want and then pull out of the talks and blame it on the otherside.

[Undertoad]

US Contacted Iran's Ayatollah Before Election

Obama: "I am using the Swiss to send a personal letter to you, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, suggesting an improvement in our relations."

Khamenei: "Fuck you."

Prior to this month's disputed presidential election in Iran, the Obama administration sent a letter to the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, calling for an improvement in relations, according to interviews and the leader himself.

Ayatollah Khamenei confirmed the letter toward the end of a lengthy sermon last week, in which he accused the United States of fomenting protests in his country in the aftermath of the disputed June 12 presidential election.
...
"The American president was quoted as saying that he expected the people of Iran to take to the streets," Ayatollah Khamenei misquoted Mr. Obama as saying, according to a translation by Mideastwire.com.

"On the one hand, they [the Obama administration] write a letter to us to express their respect for the Islamic Republic and for re-establishment of ties, and on the other hand they make these remarks. Which one of these remarks are we supposed to believe? Inside the country, their agents were activated. Vandalism started. Sabotaging and setting fires on the streets started. Some shops were looted. They wanted to create chaos. Public security was violated. The violators are not the public or the supporters of the candidates. They are the ill-wishers, mercenaries and agents of the Western intelligence services and the Zionists."

It appears that no amount of friendly gesturing, no amount of precision wording put into diplomatic statements, is going to stop the Islamist fucks from making the West and Zionists the scapegoats for everything bad that happens to their regime. We screwed the pooch in 1953 and it is original sin no matter what happens since then. Now there are boogeyman Westerners with tire irons on every street corner. It seems clear now that the Obama approach will not bear fruit and so more friendly letters will be pointless, should the Ayatollahs survive the current revolutionary mood. Contacting them only reminds them who's convenient to blame.

[classicman]

North Korea threatened Wednesday to wipe the United States off the map as Washington and its allies watched for signs the regime will launch a series of missiles in the coming days.

The new U.N. Security Council resolution requires member states to seek permission to inspect suspicious cargo. North Korea has said it would consider interception a declaration of war and on Wednesday accused the U.S. of seeking to provoke another Korean War.

"If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will ... wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all," the official Korean Central News Agency said.

[sugarpop]

As if N. Korea could accomplish that.

[ZenGum]

Its like that noisy little weedy kid who has gotten used to getting his own way by yelling and screaming and throwing tantrums.

It would be good if there were some way we could administer the equivalent of a good spanking to the tiny group of leaders responsible for this, without killing huge numbers of relatively innocent civillians.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

Its like that noisy little weedy kid who has gotten used to getting his own way by yelling and screaming and throwing tantrums.

It would be good if there were some way we could administer the equivalent of a good spanking to the tiny group of leaders responsible for this, without killing huge numbers of relatively innocent civillians.

assassination?

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

assassination?

Assassinations can easily backfire.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

Assassinations can easily backfire.

yes, yes, but it's cheaper than YEARS and YEARS of war... or... whatever it is when you engage in war, but Congress never approves it as a war...

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

yes, yes, but it's cheaper than YEARS and YEARS of war... or... whatever it is when you engage in war, but Congress never approves it as a war...

Not necessarily. A lot of times society is not the product of a ruler but the ruler is a product of society. If it is the latter, an assassination will only bring in a new, most likely worse, [insert whatever].

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

yes, yes, but it's cheaper than YEARS and YEARS of war... or... whatever it is when you engage in war, but Congress never approves it as a war...

It's a war. Quacks like a duck, etcetera.

Congressionally declared states of war carry with them enlarged government authority, so declaration is heavy with internal political consequence: Lincoln suspended habeas corpus for the duration. Jane Fonda might be either in exile as long as Roman Polanski, or only recently out of prison after being convicted of treason per Article III, Section 3 para 1, US Constitution. Things like that.

But, since the Constitution does not forbid calling out the Army without a Congressional declaration, and it is clear that the option of sending troops, and quickly, without having to put the entire nation on a war footing each time has some real advantages in promoting national policy, the precedent runs about 150 shooting affrays with or in foreign places to 5 Congressional declarations -- and they're still wars. Just various sizes.

Come to 9-11, the feeling both nationwide and on Capitol Hill was that while a declaration of war would very much focus the nation's energies on beating the kaffiyehs off the foe, such a response was somehow misaimed or disproportionate. Not, in the end, right.

None of which tergiversation makes trying to win the fight illegal.

Were it illegal, we're, what? Not supposed to win? Keerist. What's up with that?

And when you really think about what's up with that, it gives you the creeps.

[BrianR]

We don't assassinate foreign leaders. That's the policy. Even Saddam wasn't outright assassinated, he was deposed, tried and hung. I was thinking kidnapping, stripping them naked, a few good colon-cleanses followed by a thorough spanking by a professional disciplinarian, then recording the whole thing on tape, telling them that the video will hit YouTube the day after they get out of line.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by BrianR

We don't assassinate foreign leaders. That's the policy. Even Saddam wasn't outright assassinated, he was deposed, tried and hung. I was thinking kidnapping, stripping them naked, a few good colon-cleanses followed by a thorough spanking by a professional disciplinarian, then recording the whole thing on tape, telling them that the video will hit YouTube the day after they get out of line.

I would love to give Kim Jong-il a good discliplining.

[Undertoad]

Iran: "Now that I am in the weakest position ever, I am willing to negotiate with you in front of the international media."

Obama: (thinks silently) "Fuck you."

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Of course, dead dictators are still improved dictators, not so?

[piercehawkeye45]

Until they get replaced by someone/something worse...