Honestly, I don't understand the whole 'not talking to your enemies' thing. History has proven that the only way to resolve conflicts peacefully is to engage in diplomacy, but Bush and McCain seem to think that if our government continues down the path we're on, only talking our allies, that leaders of countries like Iran will get tired of our President calling them 'evil' and the Republican nominee threatening to bomb them and suddenly decide to drop their divisive rhetoric and nuclear ambitions and be nice. If that's what Bush and McCain think will happen, then they're pretty naive, because it hasn't, and it won't. There is a reason the words 'ignore' and 'ignorance' have the same root. If we don't engage, we won't learn, and if we don't learn, our Middle East policies will continue to fail.

I think most people are smarter than to believe that threats and name calling are any way to influence behavior or to kick-start the diplomatic stalemate in the Middle East, but the playground policy of both sides taunting each other and arrogant inaction seems to be the Bush/McCain strategy. I think they're afraid, like most schoolyard bullies, not so much of the threat from the opposition, but that people will realize how completely wrong they are.

John McCain and George Bush don't think we should talk to Iran or other countries with whom we have serious disagreements or who pose a threat. They call it appeasement. Most people call it diplomacy. I'm beginning to think Bush/McCain doesn't believe that the most powerful nation on earth can engage in effective diplomacy with other countries. I'm really starting to think they doubt our ability, that they don't think we have what it takes. They're afraid of failure and their reaction to that fear is to continue to engage in their current policy of failure.

It's time for the adults to step in.

In a Washington Post column yesterday,'The Wisdom In Talking', Senator Kerry explained exactly why we need to talk to Iran, and what America stands to gain by engaging in effective diplomacy.

Lost in the [Bush/McCain] rhetoric was the question America deserves to have answered: Why should we engage with Iran?

In short, not talking to Iran has failed. Miserably.

Bush and McCain won't admit to being afraid, of course. They call it 'naive' and 'appeasement' to hold talks, and speak of diplomacy as if it's some sort of reward for good behavior. They want Iran to change their ways before we talk to them, when getting them to change is precisely the reason we should engage in talks. The Bush/McCain approach to diplomacy is not only wrong, it's exactly backward.

Barack Obama spoke recently of the importance of diplomacy, questioned the rationale for Bush and McCain stunningly and inexplicably sticking to their talking points, and the futility of the Bush/McCain policy.

Violet pointed me to an article by Thomas Friedman that discusses a serious risk of the Bush/McCain policy of non-engagement, which is that America, by not taking part in international diplomacy, is in danger of being left behind by the rest of the world. Friedman cites Fareed Zakaria's book "The Post-American World", in which he concludes that if we don't start rethinking our diplomatic policies, we're going to lose our standing as a diplomatic powerhouse.

“That was fine in a world when a lot of other countries were not performing,” argues Zakaria, but now the best of the rest are running fast, working hard, saving well and thinking long term. “They have adopted our lessons and are playing our game,” he said. If we don’t fix our political system and start thinking strategically about how to improve our competitiveness, he added, “the U.S. risks having its unique and advantageous position in the world erode as other countries rise.”

There's evidence of our waning clout in the Middle East. Just this last week, Israel held talks with Syria which were brokered by Turkey, something the Bush administration has refused to consider. Furthermore, the administration's response to the news was not support, but continued censure.

The United States said it did "not object" but repeated its criticism of Syria's "support of terrorism" -- a reminder for many analysts that U.S. hostility to Damascus, and to its Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah allies, makes a Syria-Israel deal unlikely before President George W. Bush steps down in January.

Soon, if we maintain the Bush/McCain policy, we won't just be the bully in the schoolyard, we'll be the one that's not even picked to play. Now, that's something to be afraid of.