I wonder if decades from now anything this administration did will be considered worthy of praise. It sure seems doubtful right now.
Washington ‘snubbed Iran offer’
Iran offered the US a package of concessions in 2003, but it was rejected, a senior former US official has told the BBC’s Newsnight programme.
Tehran proposed ending support for Lebanese and Palestinian militant groups and helping to stabilise Iraq following the US-led invasion.
Offers, including making its nuclear programme more transparent, were conditional on the US ending hostility.
But Vice-President Dick Cheney’s office rejected the plan, the official said.
“But as soon as it got to the White House, and as soon as it got to the Vice-President’s office, the old mantra of ‘We don’t talk to evil’… reasserted itself.”
Well, they did cut taxes; but after that I’m coming up blank…
Mike,
Cutting the taxes looks nice, but the bill eventually comes due…
This came out a year ago.
If what Cheney and Bush have done over the last 6 years isn’t treasonable, then the Rosenbergs should be given a posthumous pardon.
#2, Maybe you missed the memo that said we were in a recession in 2001 and that the federal government recently reported record tax revenues. It’s not the level of taxation, it’s the proclivity of politicians to spend money wastefully that is our problem.
Are you people serious? Bush and Cheney were exactly right in blocking this. Do you really believe that Iran wants to stop Palestinian terrorism? Do you really believe that Iran has any noble intentions with respect to “stabilizing” Iraq? Iran wants to take Iraq or control Iraq.
This will go down as another of a VERY LONG STRING of opportunities the Bush administration missed.
It was reported in Pakistani newspapers that the Taliban tried to give a heads-up to the Bush administration about 911, but they were turned-away by the Whitehouse because America didn’t officially recognize the Taliban.
As reported, some members of the Taliban government understood that bin Laden’s plans would be disastrous for them, personally and as a movement.
#5 what? Like you guys?
Why is this news? It was reported as it happened. The White House ordered the weapons inspectors out in 30 days. Saddam offered to negotiate. He was turned down. Dan Rather interviewed Saddam just before the invasion, and Saddam offered to negotiate, denied having any weapons, begged with dignity to keep us from invading.
The real news is that Cheney turned him down. When exactly was he elected president?
Who honestly thinks the Iranians would have honored any part of what they proposed? Even if major arms were held back due to this alleged agreement, there would still be organized Islamists based in Iran who would have continued their agenda of destabalization. The Iranian gov’t would look the other way, if they have any control in the first place, so what really would have been in it for us?
Just remember that Iran, a member of the axis of evil, provided assistance during the US invasion of Afganistan. Iran was then surprised when their assistance was refused during the Iraqi War planning stages. Maybe the VP was confused by the fact that the US was getting ready to invade his old ally(Iraq) while the old enemy, (Iran) was helping out…..
To all of you who think we should never deal with Iran because they are a bad government and unjust to their people; then WHY are we STILL dealing with the following:
Pakistan (A military coup leader turned president)
The Republic of the Congo (Harbouring Rwandan Genocide Leaders)
The Republic of China (Do I even have to say anything?)
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (their people FUNDED 911 and ruled by despots!)
The Kingdom of Kuwait (Saudi Arabia, but smaller)
Libya (They are friends even thou Ghaddfi is still there)
Haiti (Again do I have to go over it?)
Brunei (Despots and right abuses)
These are just a handful that we are friendly with. Might I add that Thailand, Costa Rica and Honduras also have many human rights issues and we freely support and or do business with them ALL the time.
Look it doesn’t MATTER a bit what these nations do, IF it is useful for us to deal with them then we will lie in bed withese bastards as much as we like. That is HOW all governments work. The brits do it, the french do it, the germans do it, the japanese do it, so on and so forth.
To our government evil is VERY subjective. Until the gulf war, Hussein was our friend.
The US has no monopoly on dirty deals, but it has no share in nobility or righteousness.
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#9. Exactly what agreements have the Iranians made and signed that they have renegged on? I’m interested. Name two. Hell, name one.
#8 I find it amusing that the story these fools have spun for their two wars of choice (Iraq and Iran) are so similar, that we might as well not even remember which country we are talking about. Indeed, in both cases every opportunity for diplomatic or covert action has been bypassed for full on conflict, with all of its associated revenue streams. Always the same; WMD, mushroom clouds, unreasonable madmen, “this is our last resort”. All lies, of course. If their objective was to destroy the American military and Constitution for profit, they could hardly have done it better, and that is certainly treason; they need to go, and be tried.
John,
Isn’t providing funding and material support to terrorists and attempting to create instability in Iraq sufficient for us to question their intentions?
Thomas,
Isn’t training shia militia under the guise of police and army the same as funding terrorists?
The fact is the british SET up the government of Iraq with a Sheik BECAUSE of the sectarian problems between shia, sunni and kurd.
It failed when the PEOPLE of Iraq took over and formed a secular republic.
Which THAT failed due to a coup that led to eventually Hussein in power.
The region has not been the same since Persia was split up during
the Brits take over of the region. Heck Palestine was a rather good
but poor place to love until the Turks came and messed it up and the British had to take full control of it again.
Face it these people are the muslim equivalents of Protestants and Catholics. Ther will NEVER get along together unless there is a strong, autocratic secular leader over them.
The west cannot hope to decide what their fate will be. They tried it
from the time of Alexander and failed, what on earth does anyone think it will work now???
People HAVE to choose and lead their OWN people or it never works.
So for all the moderate and liberal muslims in the ME, get out NOW and let those fool reactionary fanatics knock themselves off and around until they are either too tired to continue or dead. Eventually, LIKE middles ages Europe, they will finally stop and not be counterproductive.
Until then we are only fooling ourselves into thinking we can change them. Like drug addicts and cultists, the individual MUST make the choice to change. Change never happens from the outside of humans.
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#15, +1
Oh yea…. I’d trust such a promise from Iran. Bush & Co. were smart to tell Iran to take their “offer” and shove it. Otherwise, Bush would have to add being another Neville Chamberlain to his list of failures.
For those who don’t know, Neville Chamberlain was the British Prime Minster who signed a peace agreement with Nazi Germany in 1938 where Germany promised to not invade any more countries after they took Austria. We all know how long it took Hitler to ignore that treaty.
Read about it here
Yeah, except the problem with Chamberlain was that he ignored everyones advice about what Germany was going to do and just went ahead with his own agenda, coming back waving a little bit of paper and saying “Mission accomplished”.
Nothing like Bush that is it? Oh.. wait…
#17, One of the smartest moves Chamberlain made. It gave Britain time to rearm. Unless you expected Britain and France to invade Germany with Depression worn armies.
#19
Riiiiiight. I’m *sure* that was Chamberlain plan all along. It couldn’t possibly be that he was a pussy and thought that surely after WWI no one would ever need to resort to war.
So you prefer that the White House ignore people’s advice about what the Iranians would do, and bring back a peace of paper and say “Mission Accomplished”.
Diplomacy may have been the right answer, but it’s a tough call when you have the leader saying he wants to eliminate Israel, has visions of a 12th imam, etc. The Iranian President has also stated that it would be dangerous for America if their research went underground. Why would an underground and out-of-sight nuclear research program and reactor be dangerous if it were for peaceful purposes? Others on this board have also stated that they think Iran is pursuing nukes to defend themselves from an Iraq-like treatment.
one cannot achieve peace without dialog. at the height of the cold war there was still a direct line between the white house and the kremlin, remember?
the message we are sending to the nuts is simple: ‘we won’t talk to u unless u have nukes’ – look at north Korea…there’s gonna be a lot of explaining to do in just a couple of years unless we f it up more.
#8 – For that matter, when was Bush actually elected president?