| Agree |
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...I announced that I am ready, in the United Nations, to engage in a debate with Mr. Bush, the president of the United States, about critical international issues. So that shows that we want to talk, having a debate before the world public -- before all the audience, so that truth is revealed, so that misunderstandings and misperceptions are removed, so that we can find a clear path for brotherly and friendly relations...
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| Agree |
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Mr Obama had it right. Speaking to the enemy is an ordinary part of diplomacy and does not on its own amount to appeasement. In Munich in 1938, Neville Chamberlain's sin was not that he talked to Adolf Hitler, but that instead of standing up to him he sold Czechoslovakia down the river. Had the British prime minister then been Winston Churchill, the outcome of the meeting, and the history of the world, might have been different.
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| Agree |
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...if we show ourselves willing to talk and to offer carrots and sticks in order to deal with these pressing problems [then] if Iran then rejects any overtures of that sort, it puts us in a stronger position to mobilize the international community to ratchet up the pressure on Iran. Our unwillingness to talk or the perception that we are trying to bully our way through negotiations, that's eliminated as an excuse for them not dealing with these issues in an appropriate way.
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