What the fuck does "without preconditions" even mean?

[jackshoegazer]

In the Land O' Bush, you must meet certain conditions or we won't even talk to you. They are under some illusion that not talking to America is a punishment and that all of these "bad" countries are just jealously slavering for an opportunity to talk to us. So, if they meet these conditions, then we may talk.

For instance: "Hey, Eye-ran, git rid of your entire nuke-u-lar program We know it's for bombs, so hey, Eye-ran, git rid of it, or we won't even talk to you."

To which Iran says, "Excuse me, America, but our program is for nuclear energy, we are not making nuclear weapons."

To which we respond with our fingers in our ears, "Nannny-nanny-boo-boo, I can't hear you! Ditch your nuke-u-lar ambitions first and then we can talk about it."

"But it's for peaceful energy, not.."

"I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!"

That's preconditions. It's stupid and it doesn't work. It's the diplomatic equivalent of Cartman's "Screw you guys, I'm going home."

P.S. The Sarah Palin Disney Movie

Comments

[hellocthulhu.livejournal.com]

Exactly. It's a strategy based entirely on the idea that talking to the US is a great privilege, like being granted an audience with the king or something.

That said, I do kind of doubt that Iran's nuclear program is entirely peaceful.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Oh, either do I, but we're never going to find out if we don't talk to them. If we were, oh, diplomatic, we could set up relations with them in which we express our worry, they give reassurances and oh, I don't know, set up UN inspectors to make sure. But we won't talk so we won't even know.

What always gets me is that the U.S. is the only country that has ever used nuclear weapons against another nation and we expect the world to give up its nuclear ambitions and trust us as the sole-holder of nukes?

[hellocthulhu.livejournal.com]

That's the rock-and-a-hard-place of nukes. We have absolutely no moral position from which to tell other countries "no nukes for you"... yet it seems pretty undeniable that countries like Iran and North Korea having nukes could be a very bad thing, much moreso than, say, Sweden and Canada.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

It would also help if the Bush Administration would stop outing undercover CIA agents whose jobs are to prevent nuclear proliferation.