Iraq’s neighbors, including Iran and Syria, have agreed to join U.S. and British representatives at a regional conference here on the Iraqi security crisis, government officials said Wednesday.
Deputy Foreign Minister Labid Abawi told The Associated Press that Russia and France were studying the invitation, but “I don’t see any sign they will refuse.”
“Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, even the U.S and Britain have informed us they will participate,” he said, although Tehran has said publicly it has made no decision. Abawi also said China had agreed to attend.
Oh, right, I know where I heard it before.
John Kerry, September 30, 2004:
I know I can do a better job in Iraq. I have a plan to have a summit with all of the allies, something this president has not yet achieved, not yet been able to do to bring people to the table.
Almost 3 years and 2,100 American lives later.
Screw these horrible people and screw them in the afterlife.
No coincidence that both Iran and Syria have well equipped highly trained armies making them quite capable of defending themselves- They make for the worst kind of official enemies.
Just so we’re straight….
Now you are mad at Bush cause he did the exact thing Lurch said should be done?
Whooo….a double standard for the world to see!
I’m saying he’s bad because he could have done it 2,000 lives ago, moron.
Oh…good point.
If only we had dropped the atom bomb on the japanese in 1943….think of all the lives that could have been saved…
Classic, pedro, truly classic.
Sweet Jesus, you are an absolute twit.
Wow Pedro, you really stunk up the joint this time. It’s like an H-Bomb went off in here…
Congratulations, I think your post caused the collective I.Q. of the entire country to spontaneously drop about 3 points.
Pedro, really deep thought. Unfortunately, we hadn’t figured out how to build the bomb until 1945.
Conversely, we have been engaging in diplomacy since even before we had presidents. It is only our most recent version who seems constitutionally unable to engage in it.
you lefties engage in magical thinking like the rest of us breathe…
Zadura bascially hit the nail on the head. We weren’t ready to begin diplomacy with Iran years ago. See, for the kiddies here, diplomacy isn’t about just picking up the phone and scheduling a “play date”. There are complex calculations, and a small mistep can lead to war rather than peace.
Ollie is doing the equivalent of my atom bomb statement here, we weren’t READY to engage the Iranians prior.
Gee, Pedro, I would have thought that part of diplomacy would be to cultivate the best possible relations with other countries all along, rather than wait and ignore them until it’s a crisis or until things have passed the point of no return.
But I guess that’s “magical thinking”.
Imagine, “All options are on the table” will now even include DIPLOMACY!!!!
Yeah, let’s wait until Iraq is a festering pot of death squads, revenge killings, crime, terrorism, corruption, civil war, hopelessness and hell before we try diplomacy. Good plan, Pedo.
I think the problem is GW BUSH has too many “play dates” and not enough work time scheduled.
It’s like: hey, let’s start that big terror response drill that simulates attacks on 10 American cities! Everyone to their post!
Bush: but I want to go for a bicycle ride. I don’t need training wheels anymore, you know.
Drill Leader: That is your post George. Don’t forget your Snack’ems.
Pedro trots out the false equivalency card yet again.
Please stop talking, I can’t brain anymore.
Yeah, but how exactly does OW know it could have been done in Sept 2004?
Would Syria have agreed? Iran (still hasn’t agreed this time)? China? Etc
No this is the rankest of speculations on his part. Just like when he just knew the answers to all our problems was to invade Pakistan and go right to OBLs address (which we assume OW would provide us) and kill him.
Sigh. Oil and water. Progressives and foreign policy.
In Dugger’s world the fact that Bush never tried means it never could have been done.
Oil and Oil. Republicans and Foreign policy.
Wasn’t it Iran that reached out to us and we said no thanks?
Iran Strategy Group: Iran wants to open up talks with us, talk about their nuclear program, Iraq, and terrorism; this is counter to our Middle East strategy. To your posts. Dick, Karl, to the command center, Colin, to the communication room, Condi to the shoe store.
George Bush: I hope this won’t take long I was gonna play hopscotch with Barney.
Iran Strategy Group: very good move Mr President, that’s bold decisive leadership.
“Oil and Oil. Republicans and Foreign policy.”
Ha!
I love conservatives. Just love ‘em. To them, it’s magical thinking to believe that constructively engaging our enemies through diplomacy might achieve anything.
On the other hand, they believe that refusing to speak with our enemies at all is the serious person’s plan to concrete results.
Fellas, our invasion of Iraq put us at the mercy of Iran and Syria whether we liked it or not because we couldn’t control the borders ourselves. We essentially gambled the fate of the mission in the wild hope that radical forces in Iraq and the neighboring countries, whether official or unofficial, would do the right thing because, well, just because.
And we get accussed of magical thinking. Brilliant.
Oliver’s “magical thinking” assumes that if we would have sat down with “all of the allies” in 2005 or 2006 and “talked,” then the sectarian violence and terrorist infiltration in Iraq would have magically disappeared.
Again, I’m confused. Kerry said “all of the allies.” Syria and Iran are now our allies? Were they our allies in 2004?
What are we going to ask Syria and Iran? Please stop sending weapons and personnel into Iraq? Stop killing our soldiers there? Stop sending weapons into Lebanon? Stop building a nuke?
Iran will be interested in “talking” for only the amount of time it takes them to finish their nuclear research. Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq will talk with Iran simply because they don’t want to be on the receiving end of an Iranian nuke.
If we were smart, we would be working covertly within Iran to erode Ahmadinejad’s increasingly fragile support base. That’s the most sensible solution to eliminating the threat he poses.
I love conservatives. Just love ‘em. To them, it’s magical thinking to believe that constructively engaging our enemies through diplomacy might achieve anything.
Bush isn’t a conservative and Chamberlain constructively engaged Hitler.
Yup. You just gotta love ‘em. Thanks, Dugs.
What are we going to ask Syria and Iran? Please stop sending weapons and personnel into Iraq? Stop killing our soldiers there? Stop sending weapons into Lebanon? Stop building a nuke?
If you don’t ask, the answer is always “No.”
Dugger. you’re gonna give yourself whiplash, swinging your reality around like that.
Bush may be right wing in relation to your own ideologicial position, but he is not a conservative. A conservative doesn’t spend that much and pursue an aggressive intervntionist forein policy.
Funny comment regarding “aggressive intervntionist (sic) forein (sic) policy,” Dugger, because I was told on this very blog by you or Dr. Pedro that foreign interventionism had been a mainstay of the conservative movement since Nixon. Keep movin’ those goalposts.
“A conservative doesn’t spend that much and pursue an aggressive intervntionist forein policy.”
That’s awesome. A true conservative wouldn’t have invaded Iraq but you liberals are goddamn traitors for opposing the war!
Considering if Iran did arm insurgents, that would account for about 10% of the attacks on Americans. Alot of funding for the other 90% of the attacks comes from Saudi Arabia.
zadura
two things
My typing sucks. Always has. If you ar going to ’sic’ every typo, your ’sic’ fingers are going to get very tired. I don’t care. If I fix my typing I forget where I parked the car.
Does it ocur to you at all, that conservatives are individuals and have differing opinions amongst themselves. I am not accountable for what the Doc or JW say, any more than they I. If you think you win a debate with me by saying ‘but Angus Podgorny said’…you are sadly mistaken.
and, midder, thanks for the intelligence update. I’m amazed how the CIA, FBI, military intelligence agencies and foreign intelligence agencies can’t find stuff out like that, but some puny little blog commenter on OW can. But then OW knew exactly where OBL was hiding, so who knows.
Awwww, poor Dugger. Showing off his ignorance of the whole subject again. The majority of American attacks are carried out by Sunni insurgents and Al Qaeda (sunni) attacks. Sunni specifically means not Iran.
The administration tries to blame Iran, but failed to make the case. For instance IEDs that the administration claimed could only come from Iran have been found to be manufactured in Iraq. No wonder the Bush administration has no credibility.