Libs love the idea of talking to our enemies (or the enemies of our friends). They believe that we can reach common ground with our enemies, avoid bloodshed, avoid wasted money on wars and improve the political climate around the world. Very nice idea.

The problem is, though, that when you enter in to talks, then by default you're entering in to negotiations. You can negotiate with someone over the price of a good or service, perhaps even over a boarder and other physical-economic issues. You cannot negotiate over ideals. If the leadership in Iran believes that Israel doesn't have the right to exist, then how do you negotiate that?

At best, you can hope to do what has been done in N. Korea; give them money so they shut up until they need more money.

I challenge libs who think that talking with our enemies is a solution to our political problems to name a single instance in which negotiating over ideals proved to be a long-term solution to international problems.

Secretary Gates is a liberal? Who knew?

One can hold ideas that are in line with both sides of the political isle. Gates is obviously on the wrong side of this issue. Or, he could answer the question that you couldn't, and would bring me to his side.

What gets me about the idea of never talking to your enemy is that it runs completely against every diplomatic milestone we've achieved over the last hundred years. The Cold War was not won by fighting these skirmishes in Vietnam and Korea and Central America; we ended up losing most of those, or bringing them to a draw. We won the Cold War through Reagan's hard-assed negotations with Gorbechev. If Reagan had followed your advice, we'd still be grappling with Soviet communism.

Interestingly, I've heard and read Russian officials talk about the end-times for the Soviet Union, and they consistantly claim that the U. S. had a lot less to do with the failure of the old system than we like to take credit for.

But, the fact is, that even if the U. S. was to credit for the fall of the Soviet Union, then you can't ignore the fact that the Cold War wasn't that cold. Many credit the war in Afghanistan as the straw that broke the Soviet's back, and CIA operations made the resistance there successful. We funded wars all over the world to stretch the Soviets thin and to force them to the table, not as equals, but as a nation that had to bend to our will in order to protect their very existance.

If we negotiated with Iran after they've funded operations against us for a decade or more, then whose role do you think we'd be playing in those talks, the America of the 1970s and 80s that brought the Soviets down (as it's claimed), or the Soviets that were admitting defeat and came ready to make concessions?