Letter of the Day: The key to foreign talks is shutting up

In her column in Sunday’s R&L, Mona Charen gave us more information than we get in the sound bites on the nightly news.

After casting doubt on the patriotism of all Democrats, she went on to explore the foreign policy theories of presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Ms. Charen seems to be too young to remember the last classic liberal administration, that of Richard Nixon.

Nixon, for those of us who care to remember, initiated diplomatic relations with the terrifying communist China and started regular, low-key talks with the Soviet Union. This foreign policy initiative was key to the implosion of the Soviet Union in the late ’80s.

The Reagan Administra-tion’s chest-beating about the “Evil Empire” postponed the collapse of the Soviet Empire by giving something for Soviet hardliners to fight against.

Reagan’s return to negotiation on the basis of mutual self benefit allowed the Soviet Union to quietly dissolve.Teddy Roosevelt famously said to “speak softly and carry a big stick.”

Our current president, tied down with the situation in Iraq, seems to believe in talking loud and carrying a nerf bat. Bush’s loud antagonism toward Iran merely gives the extremists in that country something to rally around.

Our greatest foreign policy successes have been when we shut up and listened without delusions about the intentions of others.

Now we find from Ms. Charen that Obama would talk with our enemies.