Do conservatives think Nixon & Reagan were appeasers for negotiating friendly relations with China & Russia?

Question

Nixon opened relations with China less than 20 years after we had been in a shooting war with them in Korea, and while we were fighting another war next door in Vietnam.

At the end of the Cold War, Reagan negotiated the elimination of nukes in Europe with Gorbachev at a time when they had thousands of nukes targeted at the United States.

You could argue that these guys argued from a position of strength, but that is even more true of our relationship with Iran. They are a medium-sized country that is a regional power at best with no means to invade or occupy us. They don't have enough troops, nor navy with means to act beyond their coastal waters, nor an air force that can control air space outside their country.

Engagement with China & Russia accelerated the demise of Communism. Why do Bushies think that wouldn't be the case with the mullahs?

Or do they have some other agenda?

Answer 1

With Russia Reagan negociated with a new type of leader in Gorbechev who was moving away from the hard line and instituting a new poicy of peristroka. Totally different situation. If Iran would elect a moderate who would be open to peacefull interaction with western cultures and rebuke the policy of paying terrorist for the sacrifices of their childrens lives, that might be the difference.



A little difference in the comparisons I hope you agree. If Iran came up with a leader that will quit the terror payoffs, stop talking about wiping Isreal off the map, then some talks about a mutual existance where the west and Islamic theocracy could co-exist then talks would be a good thing.



I don't see that happening. Islam and persian/arab cultures are quite different. They don't play fair.



Edit - The goulag and thought police were intimidation and control of their domestic peoples. A little different. And they don't need a military to reach out and touch their enemies, they use un-uniformed citizens who are in the country already. 911 ring a bell? that is the modus-operendi od the country.

Answer 2

When I asked this same question people tried to make the point that Russia and China were not terrorist nations. Does anybody remember the gulag or the Chinese Thought reform. To say that they were less terrorist than Iran is completely absurd. People are very quick to forget about the history of this country. Sorry but I fail to see how the policies are different. People were excuted by the KGB for no reason during the cold war and also people were killed during the thought reform of Mao. Furthermore in Both China and Russia imprisoned people with different beliefs in prisons for many years. These sound like the same charges that people accuse Iran and other countries in the middle east of. We still talked to China and Russia despite those things because the leaders of this country wanted to get something done without using weapons. We knew that if we were to enter into a war with Russia it would be long and drawn out. If we get into a war with Iran it might not be on the same scale but their tactics of warfare would eventually become the same as we are seeing in Iraq now. I hope people don't think we'll be greeted as liberators again if we invade Iran. I would like to know what Rumsfeld was smoking when he thought of that. Any person with knowledge of the area could have told you that this was not going to occur.

Answer 3

Clinton additionally gave China maximum preferred countries figuring out to purchase and promoting status over Republican objections. Bush borrowed 5 Trillion from China over 8 years. In 2010, Obama had already borrowed 3 trillion from China. as a result, at that %. (and we are nevertheless borrowing at a extreme %.) he will borrow 12 trillion from China earlier his term has finished. Obama became into additionally a huge buddy of Hugo Chavez and has offered to fulfill with Iran without preconditions. earlier making wild claims approximately Republicans, liberals could look at their very very own social gathering. people who stay in glass properties shouldn't throw stones.

Answer 4

if China had insisted that the U.S. abandon all it's bases in S.E. Asia and called for the destruction of Japan, there would have been no negotiations....



if Russia had demanded the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Europe (even from those nations that actually wanted us there) and called for the total destruction of England, there would have been no negotiations...



China and the USSR came to the negotiating table BECAUSE of our influence in their "sphere." Iran and N.Korea want to negotiate our removal from their "sphere."



"engagement" did not speed the fall of communism so much as it was the success of democratic, free-market neighbors (supported by the West)...those models of success are the minority in the Middle East and will remain so if Iran has it's way.

Answer 5

i know.



connies love to remember the moment when reagan got up out of his chair and so famously said:



"nyet, nyet" to the soviets.



how would reagan have been able to stand up to the russians had he never spoken to them in the first place?

Answer 6

Ignorance knows no bounds, but then we have had to come grips with that for almost eight years now.

Do the letters PNAC have any meaning to you ?(agenda)