Wow. Let's unpack this a bit:

Whether you believe Bush really intended to put diplomats into Iran or you believe the entire issue is manufactured to embarrass Obama, it's clear that Obama's refusal to unequivocally retract his offer of a summit without preconditions is a mistake.

It's clear? How is it clear? It's clear to you perhaps, but you offer no explanation as to how it's clear.

Let's look at your article a bit.

The proposal to send U.S. diplomats to Tehran for the first time in three decades attracted great attention when it was floated over the summer, but has now been placed on indefinite hold as November's election nears and Iran continues to defy demands to halt suspect nuclear activities, officials told the AP.

Now there's a solid foreign policy reason (especially according to neocon foreign policy) to stop the diplomatic effort.

It goes on.

Two administration officials familiar with the matter spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration deliberations on the sensitive subject.

The officials said a decision had been made to leave the decision to the next U.S. president because it could be seen as a reward for Iran's nuclear intransigence, especially when Iran policy has become a key part of the heated campaign between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain.

So our source is anonymous Bush administration officials. Fool me once, etc.

It continues:

Thus, opening an interest section, or de facto embassy, in Tehran could be interpreted as a Republican president helping a Republican nominee by neutralizing a distinction that might make the Democrat appealing. Or, it could be seen as hurting McCain by leaving him to defend a more hard-line position than the current Republican president's.

So, even though there's a perfectly good reason (especially from the neocon viewpoint) to halt going forward due to Iran's recent recalcitrance RE:nuclear development, we can also accomplish something for McCain here by leaking that we don't want to do it because we don't want to "inject this into the campaign".

Sound familiar? "I'm suspending my campaign". No, you're not. The world doesn't stop for campaigns and campaigns don't stop for the world. It's all politics all the time. I thought you were smart enough to see that.

If Obama and McCain can join in a bipartisan effort to bailout the financial system, they can join in a bipartisan effort to avoid a war with Iran.

Let's see if I have this straight. Despite that it's clear that Obama believes a radical new approach must be taken, he should espouse the Bush line and capitulate his views in order to "join a bipartisan effort to avoid a war with Iran."

Iran won't be starting a war with us anytime soon. They're quite happy with the proxy-war we gave them in Iraq. You should know by now that the Bush administration will have a war with Iran if it chooses. The Strait of Hormuz is crawling with naval vessels at the ready.

Bush will have a wider war if he likes. He also got the headline he wanted:

Politics scuttles plan to put US diplomats in Iran

And you got played. Again.

Obama never made a "promise" to meet with anyone.

Hillary's answer was so freaking dishonest. She kept using the word "promise" over and over even though it wasn't part of the question. Either dishonest, or she's a moron. Take your pick.

This sounds like a very promising solution being proposed by Mr. Glad. In order to get started, Billy, can you please have Senator McCain send Senator Obama the words and music to "bomb bomb Iran" so that he can rehearse for their big joint peace recital.

ROFL. Swarm! Swarm!

I'm pretty sure Obama will get right on that, just as soon as McCain admits that he'd be willing to sit down with Spain. Why does John McCain hate Spain?

Personally, if I were President, I wouldn't meet with anyone at all ever unless they brought me a bundt cake.

I think I speak for America when I say that bundt cakes are a precondition we can believe in.

Nobody really cares when candidates play "gotcha" with some less than clear turn of phrase of the opponent. Everybody knows how stupid it really is.

It is really a testimony to the childishness of the political establishment that such things are done over and over again.

Voters understand that Obama adminstration will engage in more diplomacy and McCain will likely start another war.

That is well understood by the general public which has long tuned out the the semantic games.

I think the "no Preconditions" thing is sort of a semantic canard. The problem is the definition of Preconditions.

Suppose someone wants to meet with Obama, and he's in the middle of a natural disaster? Does "I can't meet with you until New Orleans is OK" count as a "precondition"? How about "I can't meet with you until we finish fighting this war"? Precondition?

How about, simply, "Now is not the best time for us to meet". That's not a precondition.

Obama's opponents spin this as, essentially, Obama abdicating his right to choose when to meet a leader. Now IF that were the only interpretation, they would be right.

However, it can also be viewed as Obama reserving the right to choose when to meet a leader. He could be saying "I will meet leaders when I damn well please".

That being said, I regard it as a semantic debate rather than a policy debate.

From a policy perspective, there really wasn't a good answer to the question. Saying you will always have preconditions is silly as saying you never will (what's the precondition for meeting with Canada or Germany?). Furthermore, "always" and "never" cannot realistically be applied to the fluidity of foreign policy.

When dealing with important issues like nuclear nations, I would prefer my President do the best thing at that instant, rather than be too concerned with a debate line from three years ago.

This suggestion of an opening an interest station in Tehran was floated by Rice and her DoS allies in June. The Israelis had conniptions as they always do when they smell "appeasement" in the air re Iran.

Nothing ever came of the notion and you can betcher britches that Condi's enemies, the Elliot Abrams neocon faction and the Cheneyites made sure it was stillborn.

This is more about the intra-administration warfare over which sector controls US FP than the election.

Condi lost this battle to create facts on the ground before the Bushie term was up.

I hope that Obama takes full advantage of Condi's (and Colin's) hard-knocks lessons learned doing battle with the players at home and abroad who adhere to the philosophy of negotiations encapsulated in this phrase:

"....... because it could be seen as a reward for Iran's nuclear intransigence"

Pure neocon-ese.

BTW. There is a REAL example of a FP gaffe by someone high up in the Obama camp to critique if one is so inclined. Biden made some inexplicable claims during the debate that have elicited some headscratching among those who heard him and went HUH?

Keywords:

Lebanon, Hezbollah, NATO, France.

Have fun.

I'm sorry Billy, but I think the fact that this has become one of your pet issues is blinding you to how this will be interpreted by most.

This:

could be interpreted as a Republican president helping a Republican nominee by neutralizing a distinction that might make the Democrat appealing.

Or, it could be seen as hurting McCain by leaving him to defend a more hard-line position than the current Republican president's.

For Obama to change positions now would be ultimately foolish, for the reasons the puppet mentioned above, and because a majority of Americans agree with him.

As far as this being a political response to what Obama said back in February? I don't buy it. I think it's a response to what he said last week: "I just have to make this general point that the Bush administration, some of Senator McCain's own advisers all think this is important, and Senator McCain appears resistant." or "And, you know, the Bush administration has come to recognize that it hasn't worked, this notion that we are simply silent when it comes to our enemies."

As a matter of fact, I think McCain should put politics aside and join Obama in calling for Bush to put diplomacy back on the table. After all, he'd rather lose the election than win the war, right?

But politics aside for a second. I remember, when I was a little girl, I actually believed that governing was something that happened outside of politics, without thought to the next election. I actually believed that if people did the right thing, they would continue to be re-elected. Childhood. It's a funny thing.

He said at the debate he didn't mean at the presidential level.

I agree that Obama made a mistake. The question now is how to handle it politically at this moment before the election. Since Obama's perceived weakness is foreign policy and there is still the chance of a "surprise" in the military area, if I were his advisor I wouldn't suggest copping to the mistake. I'd be breezy. He's good at that.

Meantime, the United States has sold new military equipment to Taiwan and the Chinese aren't happy. We'll be seeing a lot of this I think. I hope that Axelrod is working up solid responses to military issues. It would be a big mistake to let Obama wing all of it. The answers should be prepared.

He should assure McCain that he will not meet with Iran at the Presidential level without preconditions and ask McCain to join him in urging President Bush to put direct diplomacy with Iran and an Iranian mission back on the table.

I understand your point that Obama's "without precondition" statement is a gift to his opponent that keeps on giving. But the "gaffe" is not without a benefit to Obama. It has McCain reiterate the Bush line that diplomacy should start when the other party agrees to all of one's demands.

While I appreciate that it would put McCain in a certain awkward position if Obama performed the "bipartisan" challenge you propose, wouldn't the McCain camp just seize upon the change of position as an opportunity to vilify Obama?

Again.

My premise is that this whole business is a pre-emptive strike by the neocon/Cheneyites against the Rice faction aimed at preventing the establishment of facts on the ground in Tehran :

"U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the Bush administration is still considering setting up a diplomatic mission in Iran.

Rice refuted an Associated Press report that the administration had decided to hand the issue to its successor. She told reporters that Washington continues to look at the idea. "

http://voanews.com/english/2008-10-05-voa7.cfm

OK, lets try this again:

This thread is about a complete NON-ISSUE in the general election.

Nobody cares about semantic "gotchas" in this election cycle.

We tried the gun, now people are willing to give diplomacy a chance. Obama is universaly recognized as someone who will use more diplomacy than McCain. End of story. Obama wins this argument, or as many points as it is worth in this election. Nobody is really interested as to how it is technically accomplished - people want results, not process details. It could be a really hot seminar topic at the Council on Foreign Relations or at the Foreign Affairs round table, but it is silly to discuss something like that as a live electorate issue.

Now, people who think it is "naive" to meet with the Dinner Jacket, Zapatero or the Russkies, we should just bomb them instead will not vote for Obama anyway, for many other reasons. It's just that there aren't that many of them in this election cycle. Hopefully.

McCain told a hardliner, influential GOP Christian (sects matter) Lebanese American that "he would drive Hezbollah out of Lebanon". That's a military impossibility short of genocide. Period. Shows how much he fucking knows about it.

No one, not even the Israelis (with their Lebanese Shiite allies) were able to "drive Hezbollah out" during the times they were invading/occupying portions of Lebanon. Hezbollah evolved over 20+ years and forced the IDF withdrawl in 2000.

Again, Biden's comment only makes any kind of sense if he misspoke and substitued Hezbollah for Syria.

You are trying to turn oranges into apples.

The specific potential gotcha I mentioned, Biden's debate booboo(?) , relates to the CW that his FP credentials somehow shore up Obama in that arena.

Can it be exploited by the McCain camp? Maybe, but for the vast majority of Americans, it would require some clever wordsmithing in order to simplify a complex issue most know next to nothing about. Nor do the voters care.

Are they adept enough to use it effectively? I don't know.