Why doesn't Kerry meet with Assad?

[JackRiddler]

Reasons Kerry Should Meet With Assad

1) Assad is less of a criminal than Kissinger. That would be true even if Assad personally ordered the sarin gas bombing of August 21st, a hundred times over. Not that the junior realpolitik fanatics around here care about such mushy considersations, god no. But surely there's PR value in meeting someone who is less of a criminal than Kissinger?

2) Assad has decades of experience in international politics! Not quite as many as Kissinger, but Assad has demonstrated he is worthy of Master Henry by playing the game better than any other dictator who has found himself on the U.S. regime change list. I'm sure he's got a lot to teach.

3) Assad is close to Putin! He's closer to Putin than even Kissinger, I hear. In fact, he's closer to the Syrian government than anyone! A deal with him fixes the works.

So, now that Kerry has met Kissinger -- on September 11th, 40th anniversary of the Pinochet coup, and a little more than 40 years after Nixon/Kissinger ordered the Christmastime destruction of Hanoi -- why not meet Assad face to face?

It can't be that saving face is any kind of consideration? After meeting Kissinger, is there any face left to save?

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. There's something called a telephone

[JackRiddler]

8. True. So why did Kerry...

choose to meet personally and in public with the war criminal Kissinger on September 11th, 2013, 40th anniversary of the Pinochet coup that Kissinger engineered? Because there is such a thing as a telephone, you know.

[kenny blankenship]

2. Last time Assad picked up the check,

this time Kerry worries Assad expects him to pay.

[Boom Sound 416]

6. LOL

[Recursion]

3. Because SecStates rarely confer with heads of state?

That's probably the main reason. He's certainly talking a lot with Muallem, his counterpart in Damascus.

[JackRiddler]

4. Thanks for fully understanding the point.

[Recursion]

9. Thanks for pretending Kerry doesn't talk to the Syrian government

I agree, arguments are much, much easier when you just make shit up.

[KittyWampus]

5. He has met with Assad. How did you not know that? He's met with Lavrov. He's met with

a large number of people concerning Syria over the years.

This just exemplifies the willful ignorance of DU'ers.

Too many DU'ers ignore what people have been doing.

Maybe if DU'ers hadn't been humping Snowden and Greenwald all summer they'd have a clue.

[Thinkingabout]

10. K & R

I could meet with Snowden, he is a bigger criminal than I.

[Mass]

11. You assume it is ignorance.

I would be less nice. This is bad faith, as you can see by the answers.

Which is worse is that it ruins the real argument: why meet with Kissinger. There are other experts of Russia in the country. But moving to say Kissinger is a worse criminal than Assad is simply stupid (and this is not absolving Kissinger for his crimes, just refusing to absolve Assad for his).

[JI7]

7. he has met with him before

[JackRiddler]

14. Assad? Kissinger? Both, no doubt.

But a meeting with Kissinger in public, touted as a consultation on what to do about the far lesser criminal Assad, on the 40th anniversary of 9/11/73... that's some pretty special messaging there.

[Cleita]

12. Kerry is dead to me.

Meeting with Kissinger on the anniversary of the Chilean 911 is just rubbing the nose in it of every victim, every relative of every victim and anyone else like me who was horrified by the coup and the blood bath of innocents that followed. Absolutely dispicable.

[freshwest]

13. Putin is the natural choice and more effective. It's about results, not team spirit.

Nations and leaders don't matter nearly as much as people's lives.

[JackRiddler]

15. I don't think you're getting the OP.

Also, "Nations and leaders don't matter nearly as much as people's lives" in this case is pretty much the justification for taking a great many lives.

[freshwest]

16. Bombing, CW, hate and pride don't save lives. Peace and humility save lives.

It's about stopping all of it and saving lives. I don't care who does it, who gets credit, or what it's called. The only way to stop killing is to make it a win-win for all, no matter who. Just do it.