Obama and McCain spar over talking to enemies

By Caren Bohan- Analysis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ronald Reagan met Mikhail Gorbachev, Richard Nixon met Mao Zedong and John F. Kennedy met Nikita Khrushchev, so why shouldn't the next U.S. president meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

Democrat Barack Obama says he is willing to sit down with the Iranian leader. Republican John McCain calls that "reckless."

The two candidates have sparred over whether U.S. presidents should meet with adversaries -- despite Washington's long history of talking to its enemies -- in a clash that could help define the foreign policy debate ahead of the November presidential election.

McCain, an Arizona senator and Vietnam War hero, has hammered Obama daily on the issue, suggesting he sees an opening to paint the likely Democratic nominee for the election as soft on national security issues.

But several analysts said the strategy may not work. Fatigue with the Iraq war may make Americans more open to the Illinois senator's call for a fresh approach emphasizing diplomacy.

"The Cold War rhetoric and even the terrorism rhetoric are becoming old hat," said Stephen Wayne, a professor of government at Georgetown University. "The mood of the American public seems to be one where there is a sense that talking is probably better than fighting."

James Lindsay, a former Clinton administration official now at the University of Texas, said there was "nothing unusual or out of line" in Obama's stance.

"Was Richard Nixon weak because he went to China? Was Ronald Reagan weak because he met with Gorbachev? History says no," he said.

As Obama has moved closer to prevailing over Clinton in the state-by-state Democratic nomination fight, it was President George W. Bush who stirred up the recent argument about talking to enemies.

In a speech to the Israeli parliament last week, Bush said that seeking to negotiate with "terrorists and radicals" was akin to the appeasement of Nazi Germany.

Obama, who took the comments to be an attack on himself, accused the Republican president of using the "politics of fear," and McCain promptly weighed in, expressing astonishment that Obama would want to meet with Ahmadinejad, who has called close U.S. ally Israel a "stinking corpse."

"My question is, what does he want to talk about?" McCain asked.

LIMITED TALKS ALREADY

But experts on both sides of the issue say the differences are less stark than the heated rhetoric suggests.

Michael Green, a former Bush aide who is now informally advising McCain, disagreed with portrayals of the Bush administration as being opposed to negotiations.