Palin Iran and Kissinger Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

In her interview with Katie Couric Sarah Palin essentially called Henry Kissinger naive and also proved that she just hasn't done her homework. 

Couric: You met yesterday with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who is for direct diplomacy with both Iran and Syria. Do you believe the U.S. should negotiate with leaders like President Assad and Ahmadinejad?

Palin: I think, with Ahmadinejad, personally, he is not one to negotiate with. You can't just sit down with him with no preconditions being met. Barack Obama is so off-base in his proclamation that he would meet with some of these leaders around our world who would seek to destroy America and that, and without preconditions being met. That's beyond naïve. And it's beyond bad judgment.

Couric: Are you saying Henry Kissinger …

Palin: It's dangerous.

Couric: … is naïve for supporting that?

Palin: I've never heard Henry Kissinger say, "Yeah, I'll meet with these leaders without preconditions being met." Diplomacy is about doing a lot of background work first and shoring up allies and positions and figuring out what sanctions perhaps could be implemented if things weren't gonna go right. That's part of diplomacy.

Actually.  That's exactly Henry Kissinger's position.  And Couric even went ahead and confirmed it with Kissinger after the interview.  Here is what Kissinger said just last week at a forum of five secretaries of state.

“I’m in favor of negotiating with Iran.  And one – (unintelligible) – of negotiation is to put before Iran our vision of a Middle East – of a stable Middle East and our notion of nuclear proliferation at a high enough level so that they have to study it."

It's not only Kissinger's position.  It is James Baker and Colin Powell's position as well.   Here is what Powell said at the event.

Powell:  “we should start to talk to them. Don’t wait for a letter coming from them. Start discussion. We’ve been talking to them up through 2003.” Asked whether we should “take the initiative?” Powell responded, “Yeah. We shouldn’t we? What are we afraid of? We did."

But who cares what Kissinger, Powell and Baker think.  Sarah Palin is running the country now...

Comments

[Don Bacon]

Since when is disagreeing with Henry Kissinger bad judgment?
Since when is Sara Palin running the country?

[Noam Sane]

Iran doesn't have the capability to "destroy America". That moronic statement alone should disqualify her from holding an executive position in the US gov't. At best, they may be able to launch a few missiles at a neighbor.

They have a purely defensive military capability. Period.

Idiot.

[Matt]

The point, DOn, is not that Henry Kissinger is always right.

The point is that Palin disagrees with foreign policy experts in her own party on this issue, AND she either does not know their positions or she is lying about their positions. Take your pick: is she uninformed, or dishonest? Or maybe a litlle bit of both?

[Joshua Tree]

Why can't Sarah answer a straight question without disparaging Senator Obama? Does she not have enough information or intelligence?

[Passive]

While I'm sure I disagree with Kissinger on *plenty* of things, I just don't have the balls that Sarah Palin apparently does.
She is a woman who for all practical purposes has no foreign policy experience, yet thinks she is ready to be President, blowing off the opinions of a career diplomat.
It doesn't matter whether she is right or wrong, what matters is that she apparently thinks she knows better than someone like Kissinger. That's the *exact* same attitude that typified the excesses of the Bush administration.

She will do what she wants, not what those who know what they are talking about think is right.

[CranialRectalLoopback]

It doesn't help to "look this up" after the interview. It leaves Palin's ignorant position unchallenged, and unexposed, for the ignorance it represents. Couric should have already had the information in hand. She knew what question she would ask, and she could certainly anticipate the answer, and she should have prepped for the follow-up.

It isn't rocket science to trip up STOOPID.

[David Flores]

And let me tell you, buddy... Sarah Palin knows naïve.

[Cattie]

This really stunned me. I'm not even running for Vice President and I watched the forum with the 5 secretaries of state, every one of whom agreed on this issue. I am shocked that the media hasn't made more of it, because I think it's a big deal when several Republican former secretaries of state (including one close to Bush) repudiate Bush's firm policy of no talks without preconditions--which the republicans have been making an issue of to use against Obama in this race.

I'm glad they said what they said though; I hope it encourages Obama to stand firm to his original position (it seemed like he was softening it a little), which was the right position to take.

I just can't believe they didn't prep Palin for her foreign policy debate by making her watch that forum.

[Nicole]

Why are we even listening to Sarah Palin? She has no clue what she is talking about...at all! She's the idiot in the room that people say "Thanks Sarah" and then immediately dismiss. it's time for us to say "Thanks, but no thanks" to Sarah Palin!

[ann linden]

Palin wasn't lying: she probably never did hear Henry Kissinger say, "Yeah, I'll meet with these leaders without preconditions being met" because she's completely incurious and prior to a few weeks ago had, in fact, never heard anything about foreign policy! Her comment to Couric also points out that while her photo op w/ Kissinger "went great," nothing substantive was discussed. Finally, I doubt that Kissinger ever starts a sentence with "Yeah." But I'm not sure so I'll have to get "back to yah."