John Kerry wants the US to talk to the Iranians as he did to the North Vietnamese communists back in 1971. Presumably he wants to give in to the iranian demands, as he advocated with the communists back then. Here is an article about Kerry's recommendation from the blog neo neocon.

John Kerry advocates talking with the enemy: again

John Kerry has a piece in today’s Washington Post that champions Obama’s policy of talking to any and all comers, friend and foe alike.

It’s full of Kerry’s overheated and outraged rhetoric towards the opposition. Bush’s mention of appeasement in his Knesset speech was “slander” towards Obama (even though he didn’t mention his name), and “toxic rhetoric” as well. I’m surprised Kerry didn’t label it “swiftboating,” but perhaps he’d like us to forget that particular episode in his own past.

Of course, there are other even more relevant episodes in Kerry’s past that he’d like us to forget, although he once seemed quite proud of them. I refer to his own talks with the enemy—this time, an enemy in a hot and ongoing war: Vietnam.

Kerry testified before the Senate in 1971 that he had met with the North Vietnamese in Paris in 1970:

In a question-and-answer session before a Senate committee in 1971, John F. Kerry, who was a leading antiwar activist at the time, asserted that 200,000 Vietnamese per year were being “murdered by the United States of America” and said he had gone to Paris and “talked with both delegations at the peace talks” and met with communist representatives.

Kerry, now [in 2004] the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, yesterday confirmed through a spokesman that he did go to Paris and talked privately with a leading communist representative.

This issue was briefly raised during Kerry’s 2004 campaign, but it never got a whole lot of traction. Although Kerry had tried to play up his involvement back in 1971, in 2004 he was eager the play it down; in lawyerly fashion, his spokesman said that Kerry did not actually engage in “negotiations.”

Well, he couldn’t have, not being an official negotiator; he had no power to make concessions. Kerry is a lawyer and is no doubt aware that some consider his actions in talking to the North Vietnamese Communists to have been in violation of US statutes prohibiting private citizens from “negotiating” with foreign powers, so that’s why he’s so eager to disclaim the word.

During his 2004 campaign Kerry also backtracked on another statement he made during that same 1971 hearing:

Asked about the appropriateness of Kerry’s saying that the United States had “murdered” 200,000 Vietnamese annually when the United States was at war, Kerry spokesman Michael Meehan said “Senator Kerry used a word he deems inappropriate.”

All that misspeaking again, surprising in a man as careful with words as Kerry. I have little doubt he meant to say exactly and precisely what he said in 1971, and he also meant to disown his prior words in 2004 because it was politically expedient. And, since the press was on his side, he knew he didn’t really have to explain what he did mean when he used that word:

[Kerry’s spokesperson] Meehan said Kerry “never suggested or believed and absolutely rejects the idea that the word applied to service of the American soldiers in Vietnam.” Meehan then declined to say to whom Kerry was referring when he said that the United States had murdered the Vietnamese; Kerry declined to be interviewed about the matter.

The title of Kerry’s present piece is “The Wisdom in Talking;” although, from the evidence above, at other times he’s clearly seen the wisdom of not talking—to the press.

Among other flaws, Kerry’s entire piece sets up a strawman; it’s not as though anyone has categorically ruled out talking to Iran under any circumstances, if there is something to be gained from it and the circumstances are right. It is Obama’s statement that he would talk to people such as Ahmadinejad without preconditions, as though talk itself were always a good thing, that’s been criticized.

Kerry wants us to talk with Iran because not talking “hasn’t worked.” This is an illogical position; if something hasn’t worked, it does not mean its opposite will, nor does it mean its opposite can’t have even worse consequences.

Kerry isn’t upset about the possible enhancement of the prestige of the leaders of Iran as a result. He dismisses that contention in an odd way, by saying that critics’ description of Ahmadinejad as an important threat is already raising his stature, as though the two enhancements are equal in force and meaning. And he somehow thinks that a talk with Iran’s leaders would be a good way to give a message of support to the people of Iran in their struggle against those very leaders. Odd.

Kerry is also interested in talks with Iran because they let the world know we “reclaim the moral high ground.” That this might in some way matter in the power struggle between the US and Iran seems dangerously naive and remarkably ignorant of the way the world of nations actually works.

And if someone can explain this sentence of Kerry’s I’d be much obliged; for me, it seems to come from Looking-Glass World:

Dialogue helps us isolate Ahmadinejad rather than empowering him to isolate us.

Oh, and what did Kerry advocate as a result of his own talks with the North Vietnamese enemy? Why, he adopted and promoted all of their demands in his “People’s Peace Treaty.” A record of which to be proud.