Obama Will Meet With Foreign Dictators But Not Vets Or Their Commander

Barack Obama has said that he will meet, without preconditions, with leaders like Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, and North Korea’s Kim Jong Il. Charles Krauthammer most recent column is one of the most compelling and well reasoned criticisms of this policy I have read. Like the Michelle Malkin column I discussed the other day, Krauthammer talks about Obama’s gaffes, arguing that one gaffe was so bad he was stuck with it and actually turned into a policy.

Before the Democratic debate of July 23, Barack Obama had never expounded upon the wisdom of meeting, without precondition, with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bashar al-Assad, Hugo Chavez, Kim Jong Il or the Castro brothers. But in that debate, he was asked about doing exactly that. Unprepared, he said sure -- then got fancy, declaring the Bush administration's refusal to do so not just "ridiculous" but "a disgrace."

After that, there was no going back. So he doubled down. What started as a gaffe became policy. By now, it has become doctrine. Yet it remains today what it was on the day he blurted it out: an absurdity.

Should the president ever meet with enemies? Sometimes, but only after minimal American objectives -- i.e. preconditions -- have been met. The Shanghai communique was largely written long before Richard Nixon ever touched down in China. Yet Obama thinks Nixon to China confirms the wisdom of his willingness to undertake a worldwide freshman-year tyrants tour.

Most of the time you don't negotiate with enemy leaders because there is nothing to negotiate. Does Obama imagine that North Korea, Iran, Syria, Cuba and Venezuela are insufficiently informed about American requirements for improved relations?

But what is the problem with talking?

A meeting with Ahmadinejad would not just strengthen and vindicate him at home, it would instantly and powerfully ease the mullahs' isolation, inviting other world leaders to follow. And with that would come a flood of commercial contracts, oil deals, diplomatic agreements -- undermining precisely the very sanctions and isolation that Obama says he would employ against Iran.

As every seasoned diplomat knows, the danger of a summit is that it creates enormous pressure for results. And results require mutual concessions. That is why conditions and concessions are worked out in advance, not on the scene.

What concessions does Obama imagine Ahmadinejad will make to him on Iran's nuclear program? And what new concessions will Obama offer? To abandon Lebanon? To recognize Hamas? Or perhaps to squeeze Israel?

Chalk it up to inexperience, naiveté, or political calculation, but Obama’s policy is a mistake. But how do you explain Obama’s failure thus far to meet one on one with General David Petraeus? Also, Obama hasn’t been to Iraq to see things for himself in more than two years. On April 8, a group of more than a dozen Illinois veterans went to Obama’s office and requested a meeting. Though Obama was in the office he refused to meet with these veterans who had not only served their country in Iraq, but who were his constituents.

Vets For Freedom produced this ad.