Talks with Iran = NO MORE RESPECT FOR OBAMA!

SEE RELATED LINK: White Hosue Prepared To Meet One-on-One With Iran

Even as a registered Republican, I've tried to give Obama the benefit of the doubt on some things and credit where due - even going so far as to (rightfully) criticize Romney and the Republicans - but this is too much.  Even though I think a military confrontation with Iran would inevitably lead us into yet another costly, prolonged and, this time, much more dangerous conflict in the Middle East, just Obama's willingness to "negotiate" with the leader of a nation like Iran that denies the Holocaust and essentially wishes extinction on the entire Jewish race is going too far.  If Obama's treatment of Israel so far doesn't make this bad enough, these supposed talks would be bilateral and likely overseen by the European Union, which has been borderline disastrous in helping to govern its own nations and has all but encouraged the pre-existing and growing anti-U.S. sentiment in places like England and France, among other nations - "ally" or not. Even Obama's own people apparently have little confidence in this and, if I read the article right, haven't even owned up to the talks actually happening.  The article says:

 "...the direct talks with North Korea have yet to bear fruit and U.S. officials warned that talks with Iran may not yield anything either."

I'm not going to call Obama a Communist or a closet anti-American, but something is seriously wrong with this picture.  The article says that the intended strategy originated with the Bush Administration, but it was a bad idea then and it's a bad idea now that is made worse by what appears to be Obama's sympathetic attitude towards the Muslim World, in general. 

First, I think it's important to remember that a European nation - France, I think, if not the European Union, itself - was the one that successfully urged Obama's intervention in Libya last year.  The U.S. military went in, conducted a few strikes, then left right before the uprising eventually succeeded in the death of Ghadaffi; yet a year later, Libya is still violently unstable and at the time, the Administration knew so little about the "freedom fighters" they helped that those fighters could well have also been members of Al-Qaeda!  In response to criticism, Obama's stance now is that America has a moral duty to intervene on behalf of a nation oppressed so violently by such a tyrant, but how does that NOT justify Bush's war in Iraq to overthrow Saddam... the one that Democrats and Obama, himself, so vehemently opposed and still criticizes? 

Secondly, Ahmadinejad is evil, but he's not an idiot - nor is he now or in the future even a potential ally of the U.S..  This is clearly a stall tactic, probably to ease sanctions.  If so, it's bad enough that such sanctions probably need the U.S. to have even the impact they're having, but if push comes to shove, it's pretty clear that Iran could easily call-in Russia - again ruled by Putin, who has not been a big fan of the U.S. recently - to not only ease the effects of the sanctions but, theoretically, to help Iran to finally FINISH their development of nuclear power and/or arms. This could have any number of outcomes, all bad for the region and for the U.S., including a premeditative strike on Iran by Israel - igniting a war - and/or the final fulfillment of Ahmadinejad's wish to see Israel wiped off the face of the Earth... permanently.

Last, but not least, Obama's alleged openness to these "talks" does, in my opinion, prove not only the President's decidedly pro-Islam/Muslim sympathies, but further illustrates how Iran, like other parts of the Middle East, continue to successfully manipulate the U.S. and its lukewarm allies by using our ideals of tolerance and diversity against us and to ultimately blind us to the fact that ALL of this has, at its core, to do with Islam and the way it practically defines that region of the world.  If Washington isn't blinded, then it's either in denial or outright lying when it says that the West is not at war with Islam, because if you remove Islam and its place in Middle Eastern governing from the equation, you remove the source of a lot of suffering.  You remove much, if not all, of the motivations of any number of Middle Eastern factions, tribes and nations to fight.  Take Islam away, and Ahmadinejad has almost no reason to hate Israel, and Israel has little or no reason not to share with Palestine.  Take away what has been Islam's almost 2,000 year reign in that region, and you're left with practically no reason why those people could not only be (on the whole) more advanced technologically, but civilly, with tolerance for other ideas, cultures and religions and actual respect for women and their rights. I've not read the Quran, so I don't know the true tenets of Islam, but even my older half-sister - a converted Muslim since the late 80's - would admit that as often manifested in extremes in the Middle East, Islam justifies or is used to justify a LOT of violence and death and conflict and all manner of atrocities.  It's also why the U.S. and Europe can help overthrow one oppressive, Islamist regime, giving the region's people their choice of leadership, only to watch a more benign and maybe less oppressive, yet still Islamist regime take over. More specifically, from my standpoint, it's why an otherwise legal exercising of free speech in the form of that infamous video, "The Innocence of Muslims," finally gave the U.S. government the justification it needed to actually look into and eventually arrest a known criminal.  This was a man still engaging in criminal activity, separate from this video, but who probably (it seems) would not have been investigated, let alone caught, if not for his video and its alleged motivation of the attack on a U.S. Embassy that killed an ambassador.  

In conclusion, I don't claim to have the ultimate solution to the U.S.'s problems in the Middle East, but I do believe that the less presence in the region and the less direct involvement that the U.S. has in Middle Eastern affairs, the better.  Until some drastic, radical and, frankly, unlikely changes occur, the U.S. relationship with Iran and pretty much every other Islamic nation in the Middle East should be economically-driven - ONLY - and immediately, mutually beneficial, period.  Since 9/11, Al-Qaeda has been weakened and its foremost leaders killed, including Bin Laden, himself. The only thing that could possibly make any nation in the Middle East a serious, direct and physical threat to the United States is the policy of the United States - its naive willingness to "negotiate" with implacable enemies and, sadly, its unwillingness to strengthen and enforce its immigration policy, including the more stringent vetting of everyone from the Middle East either visiting or requesting citizenship in America.