Bush and Iran: as a Prerequisite to Negotiation Would you Make a Demand?

Question

Thanks lilly4, I Think Making a Demand for There Even Being a Negotiation, Means you Want Failure, I'm Not Saying that One's Desires Shouldn't Be Clear.

Thanks raffaele1111.

Thanks shahbarak.

Thanks spreed, my Thoughts too.

Thanks Steve.

Answer 1

Making demands sounds like starting out with an inflexible position which dooms negotiations to a stalemate at the outset.
I remember the endless negotiations with North Vietnam in the early 70s, and I've read about the interminable impasse of negotiations in the last year of the Korean war while men were still being killed on the lines.

I would like to be the guy in those negotiations - initially.
I'm sure I would lose patience eventually.
I would love to ask "Why do you think you truly NEED a uranium 235 fission bomb?" (Of course they would answer, "Why does the U.S. need so many nuclear fusion weapons?")

Why does North Korea need to invest in these devices when they can't feed their people adequately? Does not expending resources to build a bomb make one anxious to use the thing - - like the European military build ups that made several nations anxious to try them out in WWI.

I guess nations need to make a large bang to be heard
or taken seriously in this world.
I believe I would use more carrot and less stick initially.
Belligerent rhetoric can provoke pride, and pride can be a dangerous thing - - if history is any judge (and I think it is).

Answer 2

I had occasion to see Charley Rose interview the Iranian ambassador to the UN several days ago. I realize that people in the Middle East aren't above trying to hoodwink us into believing things that aren't true. I've also come to embrace the idea that our own government, those at the highest level of it have spent way to much effort doing the same thing. If you were a junior member of the chain of command and the news leaked that these tapes had been destroyed on your watch, they would have you can in Leavenworth before you could say General Millls.(the only General who hasn't been in charge in Iraq) We need to elect someone who can embrace the idea that more than one functional ideology can exist on earth together. We need to marginalize those who don't have enough perspective to grasp that the world has been reduced to the size of a marble and that ideas that worked when Jesus was a Cub Scout will no longer work in a world so small. We need to demand that they keepan open mind while we try to adjust our leadership from the ridiculous to the sublime.

Answer 3

Negotiation implies bargaining - and exchange. It's the to and fro of haggling. Long before that must come discussion without agenda, and understanding, establishing mutual respect. As a part Arab it has always seemed to me that this precedes all dealings between human beings, even before the negotiation of a price. The more primitive West seems not to understand such things! It's the true substance of civilization - the rest is toys.

Answer 4

Unless one is holding a gun and or a bigger gun and one is or is prepared to hold the same at the other-s' head
than one is best to try and go into any possible negotiation open minded and fully and ready prepared to listen to the other party opinions and expectations
and then and only then there may be true negotiations with possible ever lasting or at least seriously lasting results.

Answer 5

I think if we let our guard down regarding Iran, we would be stupid. It would not be a demand, it would be a warning, especially after all that Iran President has said. I would say "even think nuclear weapons" and we will show you what one can do. Now is not the time to think Iran is innocent, they are not.