Brit Hume: The Worst Thing that Could Happen would be for the Iranian People to want to engage in Disscussion

Neoconservative pundit and former Fox News “News” anchor Brit Hume on Fox News Sunday lamented the demise of the Bush/Cheney neoconservative “diplomacy” in response to Obama’s video outreach to the Iranians. Neoconservative Bill Kristol was also critical which is no surprise.

Hume appeared to agree that this was the case – and he saw it as a serious mistake. “Condoleezza Rice said something to me last year,” he explained. “She said almost no governments in the world practice diplomacy the way the United States does. … We practice diplomacy always backed up by the possibility or even the threat of some forceful action, whether it be economic or whatever. She said, most governments in the world think, ‘Diplomacy — you don’t do that. You talk, and when that doesn’t work you talk some more.'”

“It appears that Barack Obama, by this statement, has joined the rest of the world … in practicing the diplomacy of talk,” Hume fretted. “The worst thing that could happen would be for the Iranian government to respond favorably and positively and want to engage in a discussion — and then we would be on a track like that which will lead nowhere.”

Yes Brit like nobody else, because in the real world diplomacy consists of dialogue not an angry and unconditional set of demands. That is something different entirely. The Bush/Cheney administration believed in approaching the rest of the world seeking to be feared instead of respected and in return received only derision, anger, and ridicule. And the worst thing that could happen? I thought the worst thing that could happen was that Iran would become a nuclear power? That we would fail in Iraq? That Israel would be attacked by Iran? But no its the possibility that we might not go headfirst into another disastrous military excursion devoid of any support from the international community that could kill thousands of more courageous Americans (who unlike you actually go to war instead of getting deferments and then just cheering for other people’s kids to be sent to war), deplete our riches, hurl the global economy into an even more grave depression, and encourage a mass exodus out of Iran once the bombs start falling, with hordes of angry Iranians without a country to spill into Iraq and express their resentment through acts of terror?

Guess 4,186 dead Americans just isn’t enough for Brit. That’s neoconservatism for you; you believe by the time history teaches any lessons we will all be dead, diplomacy and anything short of war is weakness (though not when you avoid serving on the front lines yourself), no accountability, and that consequences are for little people.