Obama announced during a debate in July 2007 that he would personally meet with the leaders of Iran, North Korea, Syria and other hostile nations without preconditions.
Obama and Iran
Obama's plan to meet with Iran without preconditions were met with that country's answer. According to the Wall Street Journal, "Iran's Precondtions" (10/22/08), Iranian officials have recently laid out their own preconditions for meeting with the U.S. Those include a complete withdrawal of U.S. Forces from the Middle East and an end to U.S. support for Israel.
Mehdi Kalhor, Vice President for Media Affairs said that "the U.S. must do two things before summit talks can take place." First, American forces must leave the Middle East---presumably including such countries such as Iraq, Qatar, Turkey, and anywhere else American soldiers are deployed in the region. Second, the U.S. must cease its support of Israel.
The Islamic Republic News Agency reports that until Washington does both, talks are "off the agenda." Mr. Kalhor was further quoted as saying, "If they [the United States] take our advice, grounds for such talks would be well prepared."
Obama Comitments
Obama has reaffirmed his commitment to a time table for withdrawal from Iraq while acknowledging that his plan was not supported by U.S. Military Commanders or Iraq. After a meeting with U.S. Generals, Obama said he would still redeploy troops from Iraq in 16 months. In a press conference on July 08 2008, he affirmed that he thought the U.S. could safely deploy in that amount of time so that "combat brigades are out of Iraq in 2010". Before even being elected, Obama was already meeting Iran's preconditions without any of his own.
Obama and Iraq Predictions
On January 10, 2007, MSNBC reported that Obama said that the Surge in Iraq would actually worsen sectarian violence in Iraq and was quoted as say, "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think this will do the reverse." In July 2007, he told ABC's Terry Moran that he would not have supported the Surge despite the progress that had already occurred. This was in spite of the fact that the surge of U.S. troops, combined with ordinary Iraqi's rejection of both Qaeda and Shite extremists, had already transformed the country.
As noted by Moran, attacks were down more than 80% nationwide. U.S. combat casualties had plummeted...compared with the previous July. Apparently, even when proved wrong, Obama said he would still have opposed the surge on ABC's World News Tonight during its broadcast on July 21,2008. Dan Balz, writing in the Washington Post on July 22, 2008, the next day, questioned Obama's judgment about dealing with Iraq and the Middle East.
The Associated Press reported on August 22, 2008 that the Bush Administration continues to impose financial sanctions on the Export Development Bank of Iran for allegedly providing services in support of that country's weapons program which includes ballistic missile research, development and production activities. However, if Obama becomes president, he intends to sit down and have talks with Iran, without preconditions on the part of the United States. It is one reason that international leaders worry about Obama's lack of experience and poor judgment about foreign affairs.
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