What's Wrong With Talking?
To meet without preconditions? To talk to Cuba, Iran, North Korea to find out what they are thinking? Doing it nation to nation?

That is, we are told, pandering to dictators. It is naive. It shows inexperience and a lack of understanding of diplomacy.

Of course, if the dictators are on our side, then we can pander all we want. If we want something from them, we can show wisdom and insight.

When it breaks with a pattern of foreign policy that throughout history has proven to be more trouble than help, maybe it is a sign that someone is at last thinking outside the box of foreign policy that has never been all that successful. Now that does not mean I am necessarily a Barack Obama supporter. I haven't made up my mind at all on the 2008 elections. We have a ways to go.

But until we learn that one of the best ways to hear what your enemy is trying to say is to listen to them, we will get nowhere. That does not mean we have to do anything they say. We don't have to give them anything they ask for. We only have to listen- and tell them our position. Maybe we can learn something about ways to avoid conflicts. Maybe we can find new insights into the greater world we live in that might, just might change our preconceptions.

But then again I am a counselor and a pastor who has learned that talking helps. So maybe I am naive, but you never know, it might work.