At this point, after seven and a half years of repeated foreign policy blunders, half-truths and misstatements, it is hard to believe George W. Bush continues to provide new and glaring examples of his diplomatic ineptitude. Speaking earlier today in Israel, Bush likened Barack Obama to Nazi appeasers, because the likely Democratic presidential nominee has said he favors “tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions” to the deaf ears, blind eyes, and military bravado of Bush, John McCain, and the other right-wing savages whose lust for Middle Eastern blood and oil seems impossible to satisfy.
While no one has been more front and center than Obama in the recent debate over whether or not the U.S. should talk with nations with whom it disagrees, Bush did not name Obama explicitly. The president chose instead to lavish his smear on all those who prefer diplomacy to war, people like Jimmy Carter, former CENTCOM commander Admiral William J. Fallon (who “resigned his post” in March after publicly criticizing the administration’s position on Iran), and the great majority of Americans who are sick and tired of watching their sons and daughters return home in metal boxes, stuffed in the hull of a transport plane, for no good reason. But the president’s implication was nevertheless clear.
“Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals,” Bush said in a speech before Israel’s parliament, “as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along.”
“We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”
I would like to know which history Bush is studying here, because diplomacy has been proven to work time and again throughout our history. Need we remind Bush that the world was spared a nuclear disaster because John Kennedy and his administration were open to discussions with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev during the most hostile moments of the Cuban missile crisis? Hell, even Richard Nixon, with his black soul and paranoid dementia, visited Mao’s China in 1972, helping to normalize relations and, perhaps, extinguish an international fire before it sparked.
Bush hides behind the dubious claim that Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism. But regardless of what the president thinks, Iran is a sovereign nation, not a terrorist organization, and it should be treated and dealt with as such. By treating Iran (and Syria and Lebanon) like dirt on his boots, imposing sanctions and choking civil discourse, Bush has done nothing but fuel the sentiment that has led many in the Middle East to sympathize with and support in elections groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. The only way to stem the tide is to treat these nations firmly, but with dignity as well.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, apparently among the other appeasers, has also called for increased dialog between the U.S. and Iran. “We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage … and then sit down and talk with them,” Gates said yesterday. “If there is going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can’t go to a discussion and be completely the demander, with them not feeling that they need anything from us.” Gates, apparently, has spent a bit more time than his boss studying international relations.
But Bush’s misunderstanding of history doesn’t end with his brushing off of the effectiveness of diplomacy. Comparing Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Hitler, and Iran to Nazi Germany, is so inaccurate it would have been met with laughter had Bush made the juxtaposition in any other country but Israel. It is undeniable that Ahmadinejad spews anti-Semetic, anti-Zionist rhetoric at every turn. However, neither his political nor his military power is anywhere close to that which Hitler accrued in the latter half of the 1930s. Ahmadinejad’s call to “wipe Israel off the map” has all the practical force of a left hook from a geriatric amputee. It is nothing more than rhetorical posturing from an insecure little man without the faculties to otherwise lead his nation. Rather than dignifying the remarks by taking them seriously, as Bush apparently does, they should be ignored and ridiculed by civilized members of the global community.
And this is perhaps the most egregious of Bush’s many miscalculations vis-à-vis Iran. By acknowledging Ahmadinejad, the president gives him more authority than he would have otherwise. What Bush and his minions fail to realize is that Ahmadinejad no more speaks for his people than Bush does for his. Both men have seen their approval ratings dip to near record lows as they speak more and more radically, growing more and more out of touch with reality, threatening the peace and prosperity of their nations.
Like Bush, Ahmadinejad’s core support comes from lower income, less educated, and more religiously radical citizens who are more susceptible to fear tactics and rallying cries for the expansion of nationalist interests at any cost. These groups, as they grow more afraid and deeper into economic and social despair, become more willing to accept the idea that their enemies lie overseas, rather than within their borders, remaining blind to the fact that their own governments are manipulating the truth and preventing real progress by not focusing on the true cause of their problems: a stunted economy, the misappropriation of resources, too little focus on education and social welfare programs, things that limit the ability of people to rise out of their poverty and achieve better lives for themselves and their families.
Bush views himself, and in turn all heads of state, including Ahmadinejad, as the infallible mouthpiece of his country, despite the factual inaccuracy of this delusion. He also chooses to see only the worst in everyone else, their most divisive and cynical elements that are easily exploited and frightened into submission. The fact remains, however, that people simply want peace. They want economic security. They want access to education for their children. And they want these things whether they live in D.C. or Tehran or Kabul or Baghdad. No amount of chest thumping from seedy, evil leaders can change that fact.
Bush’s actions, a cheap, inaccurate fear card only he would play, are unfit for the office of the presidency, not the first time he has disgraced the position. Time and again, he proves himself nothing more than a snake-oil salesmen, using lies and empty propaganda to pitch gullible or willingly misguided people the poison that will ultimately kill them. And he does it so easily, a mischievous glint in his eyes, his mouth a twisted grin, a telltale sign revealing a seemingly logical impossibility: He truly believes his own misguided venom. I would love to spend a day inhabiting such a fairytale. If only the consequences weren’t so dire.
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Update (Thursday, 4:45 p.m. ET): For the record, for those who were unsure, I looked up appeasement and found a practical, working definition: “the policy of accepting the imposed conditions of an aggressor in lieu of armed resistance, usually at the sacrifice of principles. Usually it means giving in to demands of an aggressor in order to avoid war.”
Diplomacy is defined as: “the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states. It usually refers to international diplomacy, the conduct of international relations through the intercession of professional diplomats with regard to issues of peace-making, trade, war, economics and culture.”
If appeasement means passively giving into the demands of an aggressor, and diplomacy means actively negotiating to achieve a mutual benefit, how, then, are the two terms synonymous, as President Bush suggested in his brainless comments?
I’ll answer that question. They aren’t. The man is just a manipulative scumbag, a complete idiot, and a degenerate, lowlife piece of trash, the worst kind of politician that has ever existed and likely ever will.
So I didn’t bother tuning in. Maybe I had gotten my daily dose of political bombast earlier when I watched Mayor Quimby 
Our hapless leader, President George W. Bush, is touring the Middle East right now, and he’s waving that anti-Iran flag with full war-mongering zeal. First, we learned of the “naval incident” between U.S. and Iranian ships in the Persian Gulf, which has spiraled downward into a he-said, she-said propaganda battle. Frankly, in light of suspicious inconsistencies in the U.S.’s side of the story and after all the lies told in the buildup to the Iraq War, I, and many others, are hesitant to take the establishment’s word. That’s a sad commentary on how far we’ve fallen in just seven years, but such is the legacy of Bush and Cheney. Some critics have charged us unpatriotic, socialist traitors with simply looking for an event to call our own