| Final-Fan said: Question for Sqrl: Does "Presidential diplomacy" really mean specifically diplomacy conducted personally by the President himself, and nothing else? If so I misunderstood. I am not very knowledgeable in this. On to preconditions: When a nation like the US conducts talks like the proposed ones with a nation like Iran, with the level of tension/enmity between them, do you really think any President would just hop on a plane to Tehran without any sort of preliminaries? It's downright silly IMO to suggest that the fact that such opening steps would have to take place count as "preconditions". It's like saying that turning the key for a car ignition is a precondition of driving it. Well, yes it is, but so what? It's not the same kind of "precondition" that having to rent the car first would be. It's a whole other level. Kissinger said "I do not believe that we can make conditions for the opening of negotiations." Oh, well, I guess he forgot about the precondition of they have to meet before they can open negotiations. |
In the kissinger article you linked he referred to "very high level" meetings as the Secretary of State (ie Rice) (I think it was your link, I've read a lot on this recently so not 100% sure). Given that, among other things I've read, I would say that the term quite clearly indicates diplomacy involving the president directly. Honestly I would take that as the obvious definition given the meaning of the word "presidential". Perhaps I've missed something but I honestly don't see how it could mean something else.
Preconditions: I agree with your point that the ideas is fairly ridiculous in curret context, but the comments were originally made around the time that Obama referred to Iran as a tiny country and iirc he also explicitly stated they were not a major threat (which is at least as equally ridiculous). That would indicate that perhaps he felt as a result it would be OK to meet at the presidential level without preconditions.
Saying "well its so stupid he couldn't have meant it that way" is really not a valid argument. Begging the question comes to mind, although I don't know that it falls into that definition very neatly. My point is that its not a substantive answer but a suppositional one. If Obama had prior experience with these sorts of negotiations to point to I would be far more willing to give the benefit of the doubt. But I find it highly plausible that given who he was talking to (ie a very anti-war primary crowd) it makes sense that he would say such a thing and mean it that way.
As for the Kissinger quote at the end, it is perfectly consistent with what I've said. Your statement seems to assume that the two types of preconditions are mutually exclusive uses of the word and that only one of them can be a valid definition. But as I said both preliminary talks and pre-talk "demands" should be considered preconditions because both are things you would or could use as a condition for high level talks and especially the highest level talks. I re-stress this point because I'm not entirely certaint we are on the same page as far as it is concerned.
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