In no uncertain terms, Obama lashed out against Shrub's despicable Knesset 'appeaser' speech and McInsane's Iraqi delusions. Here's some key quotes from Shrub and McInsane...

From the Boston Globe...

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush said in a speech to the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem.

"We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush said. "As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is - the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

I truly find it bitterly ironic that Shrub showed a significant lapse of historical knowledge, in that the senator he alluded to was Republican Senator Borah from Idaho and the fact that one of the biggest Nazi appeasers/enablers was his own Grandpappy... Prescott Bush!

Meanwhile, McInsane fantasized...

"By January 2013 ... the Iraq war has been won," Senator McCain told an audience in Columbus, Ohio, a key election battleground. "Iraq is a functioning democracy ... violence still occurs but it is spasmodic and much reduced."

Most US troops would have been "welcomed home" from the war by then, he pledged.

Senator McCain said his first term would be marked by the "capture or death of Osama bin Laden and his chief lieutenants".

And he pointed out that there "still has not been a major terrorist attack in the US since September 11, 2001".

The Republican candidate, who will be 72 on inauguration day, insists he is still full of energy.

He predicted several years of "robust" US economic growth under his stewardship, a flat tax rate, the 13 million illegal immigrants in the US living humanely under a temporary worker program, and an end to the genocide in Darfur.

"My administration will set a new standard for transparency and accountability. I will hold weekly press conferences. When we make errors, I will confess them readily and explain what we intend to do to correct them."

Later on...

Back in Ohio, asked about Bush’s speech, McCain embraced Bush’s harsh rhetoric.

“Yes, there have been appeasers in the past, and the President is exactly right, and one of them is Neville Chamberlain,” McCain said.

Whew, that's some serious shit he's smoking... Where's the beef? Where's the means of achieving those delusions of grandeur? I'm waiting... Still waiting... That's right, there is none!

Meanwhile, back in Iraq, we let a golden opportunity slip away...

In a secret meeting between Talabani and the Quds Commander...

In that meeting, General Soleimani "was deeply concerned" and "promised to stop arming groups in Iraq and to ensure that groups halt activities against US forces," according to a description given by a US official to the Monitor.

Soleimani gave Mr. Talabani a "message" for US Gen. David Petraeus, too. He noted that his portfolio includes Iraq, Gaza, and Lebanon and that he was willing to "send a small team" to "discuss any issue" with the Americans.

Talabani and other senior Iraqi leaders told US Ambassador Ryan Crocker and General Petraeus that this "was an entirely different tone than we had ever heard from [Soleimani] before," and asked the Americans to "please take it seriously" and "test it," according to the official.

[. . .]

[T]he conciliatory tone of Soleimani's meeting with Talabani surprised Iraqi and US officials alike.

"We all must work together – Iraq, Iran, and the United States – to stabilize the situation," the Iraqi president said Soleimani told him. He declared Iran's unequivocal support for the Maliki government, for its efforts to dismantle all militias, and Iran's support for the unity of Iraq.

Sadr was now the biggest threat to peace in Iraq, Soleimani said, echoing past Pentagon assessments. "We now recognize [that] Sadrists have gotten outside anyone's control" which is a "dangerous development for Iraq, for Iran and for all Shia," he indicated, according to the description. Iran could not control Sadr even in Iran, where the cleric is currently taking advanced religious training, and his return to Iraq would "be a big danger."

What was the US response to those overtures...?

The top two US officials in Iraq [Petraeus and Crocker] dismissed Soleimani's words as an Iranian bid to become an "indispensable power broker" in Iraq as part of a "brilliant tactical game" meant to keep the US and Iraqi governments "off balance" and to spread Iran's influence in Iraq, according to the US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

But Crocker agreed to wait and see if Iran had "truly made a strategic readjustment," according to this US account, adding that "actions need to be visible" and "we will know soon enough."

[. . .]

Doubt on the US side runs deep, though Soleimani listed Iranian aims and even "common goals with the United States" in Iraq that virtually mirror stated US policy points, according to the description of the meeting.

"When we first saw it, we thought it was too good to be true," says the American official who provided details of the talks. "But there are so many layers of gray."

Heh, I guess it's too hard to at least talk to them to find out about those 'layers of gray', eh? True diplomacy starts by talking to one's foes, and, not at the end of a gun barrel... I truly await the arrival of grown-ups on the scene... Is it too much to ask for...?