Mullen: I Want ‘A Healthy Dialogue With Iran’ Because ‘Engagement Would Offer An Opportunity’
Mullen: I Want ‘A Healthy Dialogue With Iran’ Because ‘Engagement Would Offer An Opportunity’
Last month, President Bush launched a political attack at Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and other Democrats while speaking before the Israeli parliament, saying that they favor a policy of appeasement toward terrorists. “Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals,” said Bush. “We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement.”
After Bush made the comments, CNN’s Ed Henry reported that “White House aides” said that Bush was referring to those who have said “it would be okay for the U.S. President to meet with leaders like the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.” But now, Bush’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, appears to be siding with those who favor direct engagement with Iran.
In an interview with National Journal published today, Mullen speaks favorably of directly engaging with Iran, even though he says Iran has not always shown a “propensity” for it:
NJ: Given Iran’s role as a spoiler in the region, and with so much now at stake for the United States, doesn’t it make sense to directly engage with Iran to discern its motives and explore potential accommodations?
MULLEN: I would like to have a healthy dialogue with Iran, but many different administrations over a period of decades have been unable to achieve that. But I do think engagement would offer an opportunity, certainly, to understand each other better. That said, the Iranians have to want to talk too. It can’t just be a desire on our part. And the Iranians haven’t shown much propensity for dialogue.
Mullen isn’t the only administration official who has eschewed Bush’s absolutist rhetoric in favor of a more diplomatic approach.
The day before Bush made his “appeasement” remarks, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a group of retired diplomats that we need to “figure out a way to develop some leverage” with Iran “and then sit down and talk with them.” Gates later refused to defend Bush’s attack.
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Oy, another Admiral who’ll be spending more time with the family…
June 21st, 2008 at 7:49 pmIf the right wing thought that killing wide-eyed puppies was a sign of weakness, they would attack all their opponents as “dog-coddlers”.
June 21st, 2008 at 7:49 pm.
It’s not appeasement when Mullen speaks it, eh Bushie?
.
June 21st, 2008 at 7:55 pmThink Chimpys losing control of his people? I hope so. Time for some common sense there (not holding my breath though).
June 21st, 2008 at 8:18 pmI hope Jim Wolf is right, and there are military authorities who regard the welfare of their country as more important than Jr’s ego. If this is possible, now is the time for them to take a stand.
June 21st, 2008 at 8:27 pmMullen will be checking into rehab soon.
June 21st, 2008 at 8:31 pmI wonder when the “cerebral hemorrhages” will begin? On the other hand, given Chimpy’s command of English, maybe it will be “strokes”.
June 21st, 2008 at 8:42 pmThe Joint Chiefs also have opposed the option of attacking Iran’s nuclear sites, so I’m not surprised Mullen is speaking favorably of directly engaging with Iran.
I am surprised that he is talking to the press about it.
Either this is an elaborate game of “good cop- bad cop” or Bush is seriously out of touch with reality…and the military knows it.
June 21st, 2008 at 8:53 pmWill Mullen be looking for another job soon? As we have seen in the past, those that sway a bit from the illegal path of invasion/massacre/occupation are quietly let go.
June 21st, 2008 at 9:09 pmBush-Cheney-Rumsfeld were all genetic defectives who lacked a diplomacy gene! What a tragic confluence!
June 21st, 2008 at 9:10 pmWhat he’s saying is meaningless people, because it’s their pattern just before attacking and they did it with Iraq .
June 21st, 2008 at 9:19 pmThe plan for attacking Iran is in the pipeline and always they PRETEND negotiating or ” talking ” is important , but ultimately they want to end up saying , after rediculous demands , see we tried and they refused to cooperate .
They demanded Iraq hand over all of their nuclear and bio scientist , something no country would do in their right mind, knowing they’d be locked up for interrogation . But they WANTED the refusal , they wanted an excuse to attack . It’s all manufactured people , for failure then ATTACK .
President Bush and the Republicans accused Jimmy Carter of Appeasement for talking to Hamas….and yet…
Hamas and Israel recently agreed on a truce and ceasefire. No rockets fired in exchange for no more airstrikes in Gaza. If this truce holds, a prisoner exchange is in the works.
This was all accomplished thru a back door channel with Egypt.
June 21st, 2008 at 9:24 pmLife in Iran :: Photo Essay
by Arash Shiva
http://yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=2613
June 21st, 2008 at 9:47 pmWow. Thanks, katy.
Isn’t amazing how much they are like us? :)
June 21st, 2008 at 10:24 pmWhy does Adm. Michael Mullen hate our troops?
#11…I believe you are 100% correct.
June 21st, 2008 at 10:28 pmSo, Admiral Terrerist speaks, eh?
June 21st, 2008 at 11:03 pmHey! Is that a Nazi Appeaser uniform he’s wearing? With the surrender medal on his chest?
June 21st, 2008 at 11:07 pmchimpy’s shoot-em-up-wild west-cowboy bs doesn’t make it in the world. That mentality played out when the real cowboys from long ago dried up and blew away. chimpy’s greed lead to the occupation of Iraq. Now he wants Iran’s oil.
Iran has a right to defend itself and protect their resources. We should talk to anyone who wants to talk to the US.
Impeach chimpy and save the world.
June 22nd, 2008 at 1:10 amKahoneez Says:
Oh Lawd you could be right. I forgot how they underhandedly refused good intel and made up their own to justify occupation of Iran. I remember Hussein saying we can agree with everything chimpy wants and chimpy will still attack us.
This will be chimpy’s final hell on earth.
June 22nd, 2008 at 1:17 amNow, Admiral Mullen, you know the NaZionists and AIPAC won’t let us do that.
_AIO_
June 22nd, 2008 at 3:34 amOf course engagement works!!! The problem is the arrogant government of the USA does not know how to respect democracy and other soverign countries. Instead, they come with false claims and lies, occupations and assassination plots, and military dictatorships, etc… Just look what they did in Nicaragua, Brazil, Chile, Argentina… The list goes on forever. If democratic elected governments decide to spend on their social needs, The US comes along and makes everything possible to destroy their democracies and freedoms. It has been like that since WWII. In Brazil, they made the military dictators destroy a Rail system in order to FORD to come in. On that time, Disney created movie “Alo Amigos” in order to ’soften up’ their grip on latin america’s markets. Never mind the marines on our coast making sure the military coup would succeed. Never mind the ‘School of the Americas USA’ which teatches torture techniques. It was decades of TORTURE, and the implementation of an unpayable international debt that destroyed our society. Now the latin american (we are americans too!) governments are democraticaly turning to the left and this imoral administration is calling them with the usual ’slogans’: “Tyrant, Terrorist, radical”. Never mind none of them are occupying countries, destroying other peoples lives and coming up with TORTURE PROGRAMMES and stealing resources based sole on Lies and false flag operations. Who is the Tyrant? Who is the manace to the World peace? Who is the terrorist Mr. Bush? Who is the 21th Century WAR CRIMINAL? Israel has 250 nuclear heads, Iran has the rigth to defend itself, and the way to avoid the worse, is to engage in diplomacy and dialog. A two ways dialog. But the Brainles scum occupying the White House does not know how to mantain a dialog, little less a two ways one… he is a spoilled little bratt adicted to cocaine and alchohool who claims he is a new born Christian. I hope he is! Because if it is so, he will suffer in hell for the death of more than a million iraqui civilians, for the TORTURE PROGRAMME. He has destroyed other countries, but I don’t think he has the intelectual capacity to understand what he has done to his own country nor the understanding of the concept of CRIME. The spoilled bratt has never been punished. And he has the audacity to say History will venticate him… Hah! What does this idiot in chief understand of History?
June 22nd, 2008 at 4:32 amBut now, Bush’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, appears to be siding with those who favor direct engagement with Iran.
I hope that means that Mullen will oppose a strike on Iran and refuse to follow orders. Because you can hardly have talks with someone you have just bombed the $hit out of.
June 22nd, 2008 at 11:17 amThey all still serve at the pleasure of the President and this president gets pleasure from war, not diplomacy, despite his statements to the contrary.
June 22nd, 2008 at 4:31 pmBush’s form of diplomacy is My way or the Highway.
When the UN didn’t move fast enough for him to prove that Saddam had WMDs, he threatened the UN with irrelevancy.
June 22nd, 2008 at 4:34 pmAdm. Mullen, you’re about to be made irrelevant. Anybody who gets in the way of Bush and Cheney becomes irrelevant to them.
Hasn’t any of our military read Sun Tzu’s, The Art of War?
Here’s an exact quote:
“The most noble action that military leaders can perform is to not put their freakin’ troops in freakin’ harm’s way when talking to your freakin’ enemy will avoid war”.
There it is - an exact rendition of the ancient text. Oops, did I say “rendition”? I meant “rendering”…
June 23rd, 2008 at 5:09 pm