I have been reading this blog for a while and I have not heard much about Nixon or China.

What I hear is a reasoned approach to resolving the tension between the United States and Iran.

As far as I am concerned, the only way forward on this matter is for the United States to shed the undue influence from the Israeli and other lobbies and begin to have a cordial and meaningful relationship with Iran.

The United States will be more likely to influence the actions of the Iranian government that way than through threats of sanctions and violence.

Another issue that WigWag raised is the human rights situation in Iran. Surely, it should be all right to comment when one feels the rights of others are being abused.

But, I have noticed that it gets very tricky sometimes. How would WigWag and others feel if the Iranian government expressed concern when Ahmadou Diallo was murdered in a hail of bullets?

I think not. Had Musavi won the June elections, the anti-Iran voices in this country were prepared to malign him as the prime minister in 1983 and therefore the one responsible for the Marine Barrack bombing. The sanctions would have stayed in place and the drumbeat for confrontation would have continued (although fewer would join along) The same is true if Musavi were to take power now.

Who is it that Leverett, Mann Leverett and Katcher want the United States to ally our nation with?

Ayatollah Khamenei.

Can someone remind me again why that’s a good idea?

Nothing in my comments here suggests “uncontrollable hatred for the Leveretts.” There isn’t anything I’ve written from my perch in obscurity that is any more severe than critiques of the Leverett’s views from well-known pundits like Andrew Sullivan. It was their friend and colleague, Steve Clemons, who called them “crack-cocaine realists.” I can assure you that despite this characterization, Clemons holds them in high regard.

For the record, I don’t hate the Leveretts. While I don’t know them, I am sure that they are fine, generous and decent people. I just disagree with them and my comments, as inartful as they are, express that disagreement. Reasoned debate is what the comment section of a blog is for, isn’t it? Mr. Leverett and Ms Mann Leverett are obviously both highly intelligent and successful and I appreciate their willingness to let me express my point of view on their site without censoring what I have to say.

As long as we are on the subject, I also think Ben Katcher is a highly capable young man. I look forward to reading his invariably intelligent and well-written posts at this website and at the Washington Note. I just wish that Katcher would learn something from Clemons, Leverett and Mann Leverett about the appropriate way to dress when a photograph is taken to be included in a prestigious blog like this one. The Washington Note is adorned with the picture of a nattily dressed Steve Clemons. The photos on this blog of Leverett and Mann Leverett make them both look like the consummate professionals that they are. Katcher’s photograph, with his open collar and his tee shirt sneaking out, makes him look like he’s still dressing the way he did while making the rounds from the Bullock Dormitory, to the Goddard Library to the General Store and then to his “Intro to Something” class in Jonas Clark Hall. He should upgrade his picture here to make it more appropriate to his high level of intelligence and erudition. It’s hard for me to believe that Clemons, Leverett and Mann Leverett have all been reluctant to make this suggestion to him.

You’ve made clear, Chris, that you find my “counter-arguments” to be “ignorant” so it is probably a waste of time for me to try to encapsulate for you what I object to about the major thesis of the Leveretts, but I am vain enough to try anyway.

The Leveretts and Katcher suggest that President Obama should follow the precedent established by President Nixon when he reached out and negotiated a “grand bargain” with China. I think the argument is flawed because the differences between China in the 1960s and Iran in 2010 are too numerous to mention. But even if ad arguendo you accept the analogy the Leveretts postulate between China and Iran, their argument still fails.

The Leveretts are mistaken in thinking that Nixon’s policy towards China was a success; in fact, it was a failure. Virtually every communist nation that the United States opposed during the Cold War has a far more liberal government today than it did then. Most of our former Warsaw Pact adversaries are true democracies today and Russia, while not a true democracy, is a far more liberal nation than it was during the Cold War. The three Baltic Nations, the Ukraine and Georgia once had the same relationship with the Soviet Union that Tibet has to China today. Those former Soviet colonies are now all free; Tibet is not.

Nixon’s policy towards China exempted China from the Cold War between the United States and the Communist world. The result is that China is a far less free nation today than either Russia or the Warsaw Pact nations. The former Soviet colonies unlike China’s colonies have been liberated.

Nixon’s policies towards China also set the stage for the extraordinarily dysfunctional economic and financial relationship that the United States and China suffer from today. In no small part the recent worldwide financial breakdown was facilitated by the two headed monster of the United States as the world’s largest debtor nation and China as the world’s largest creditor nation. Would the housing bubble that preceded the world-wide financial collapse have even occurred but for China’s huge surpluses that made them anxious to finance U.S. debt at extraordinarily low interest rates? The bizarre and unhealthy economic relationship that developed between the United States and China might very well never have occurred but for Nixon’s decision to exempt China as an American adversary during the Cold War.

Nixon’s China policy was a failure. Recapitulating that policy with Iran would be a big mistake.

How does that old adage go?

Isn’t it something like, “those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it?”