Is Ahmadinejad like Khrushchev?, Kanishk Tharoor

Kanishk Tharoor — Thu, 22 May 2008 18:50:38 +0100

In the New York Times, an op-ed by Nathan Thrall and Jesse J. Wilkins draws lessons from a particularly odd historical analogy. The authors describe the unsuccessful meeting between John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev. They see in the episode a cautionary tale, warning Barack Obama to re-think his pledge to negotiate with Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were the former to be elected president.

In fairness, this is a historical analogy Obama made himself when he boomed, “If George Bush and John McCain have a problem with direct diplomacy led by the president of the United States, then they can explain why they have a problem with John F. Kennedy, because that’s what he did with Khrushchev.” Such capacious rhetoric invited Thrall's and Wilkins' rigorous dissection of the Vienna encounter and its debilitating consequences for US foreign policy.

But Thrall and Wilkins - and Karl Rove in today's Wall Street Journal - miss the point if they think that the examples of the Cold War's bipolar politics should frame 21st century thinking. Read the rest of this post...

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Is Ahmadinejad like Khrushchev?, Kanishk Tharoor