Cutting Diplomatic Ties Resolves Nothing: Unconditional diplomacy is best.

There is always a mutually beneficial outcome which can be achieved through unconditional diplomacy. Indeed, any diplomacy that in effect rewards a country without resolving the main issues we have with them would be appeasement. But I will present some solutions which can serve as examples for mutually beneficial outcomes concerning Iran. 1. Good Neighbor Agreement - Iran and the United States both share a common interest in seeing Iraq stabilized yet not hostile to their interests. The US has oil and security interests in Iraq, while Iran has security, economic, and Shiite interests in Iraq. Iraq, on the other hand, is trying to gain both the favors of the US and Iran yet both sides continue to fight. An agreement from Iran and the US to both support Iraq's stability aid-wise and to end military operations (US troops and Iranian backed support for militias) would end the USA's security qualms about an Iranian-backed Iraq as well as Iran's for a US-backed Iraq, and see to it that Iraq is helped even more than before. 2. Nuclear Non-Proliferation agreement - In a clause of the UN's NPT, a country is allowed to pursue a peaceful nuclear program. But to ensure that this program is not manipulated into a weapons program, there are a number of steps that can be taken. Foreign countries can act as benefactors for the nuclear plants and remove the enriched uranium once it has been used up in the plant. The country's plants can be inspected. The main point of contention with Iran's nuclear program is not them getting safe nuclear power, but of them making weapons from this power. The US or a proxy country can exchange certain benefits like ending the sanctions or including Iran in some trade deals for allowed control over Iran's nuclear power program. This would give US the means to make sure that Iran can't get a nuke, while Iran would end the international isolation that is hurting their economy. On a kinda side note, Iran with a nuclear weapon is not necessarily a dangerous thing. If we negotiated with Russia at the height of their nuclear program to reduce their's and our arsenals with the INF treaty, why can't we negotiate with Iran? Only one country has used nukes, and that is the USA. That is because no other country had nukes to use back against us. Iran would be subject to a certain Cold War idea called MAD - mutually assured destruction (think Dr. Strangelove) and would know that nuking Israel would warren nuclear retaliation from Israel and the USA. If you were to say that Iran is not a rational actor and would commit nuclear suicide, then I would ask you what proof is there? The USA's rhetoric on Iran is almost as bad as Iran's on Israel - Bush has called them evil on more than one occasion. So I think that the rhetoric is simply a way of getting public support and not a real policy description in these cases. I agree that we should stay away from the Israel-Palestinian thing. To clarify my argument that unconditional diplomacy strengthens the other country's leadership amongst the population, I say so because any self-interested country with enough power to resist will not comply because they believe their actions to be right. In doing so, they invite economic sanctions upon themselves, international isolation, and threats of military action. Any crafty leader can turn these things into support for his cause - painting the other country as a heartless enemy and evil foe. This rhetoric coupled with the real impact of economic sanctions or the real fear of war can be enough to push a population to rally behind their leader. The ones that disagree with their leader are usually rooted out and removed from society. This is Iran, Cuba, N. Korea we are talking about, not America where there are civil liberties. Even in America, anyone who questioned G. W. B's post-9/11 actions were deemed unpatriotic and ignored. Putting oneself in the position of 'enemy' inevitably leads to the strengthening of their leadership and limits their options to one fit to deal with 'enemies'. Indeed, you do bring up that this could also undermine a govt's support. In every country where is a split in the population between pro-gov't and anti-gov't. In Iran it is between the conservatives and the reformers. So in this point, I concede that whether it strengthens or weakens the government depends on a case-by-case basis on what country it is. In the case of Iran, which we've used as an example in this debate but not the main focus, I would argue that it would strengthen it like I stated above. As with Taiwan, I don't know if they apply. I was thinking mainly of arguing whether unconditional diplomacy is better than conditional diplomacy for getting what one wants from opposing states. Taiwan hasn't really opposed us.