Just Fred wrote:

Here's the topper on this one, too: 

Donald Trump sent out some kind of message demanding the sailors be released ............................... hours after they were released.

In a few days the Donald will be taking credit for their release.

The quick release has Republicans spinning for a way to criticize the President. Marc Rubio argued that the fact that the sailors were taken into custody in the first place is a testament to Obama's "weakness".

“Did you see what they did to these sailors?” Rubio asked indignantly. “They took pictures of them on the deck of a ship with their hands behind their back. Then they put them in a jail pen and they made the female sailor cover her head in a scarf.” Having laid out this damning case of epic humiliation, Rubio said: “You know why they did this? Because they know they can get away with it. Because they know Barack Obama is weak. Because they know he won’t do anything about it.”

The thing is, of course, that Obama did do something about it – he secured the expeditious release of the sailors, who suffered no injury during their very brief captivity. A potential crisis was averted and no shots were fired.

In Rubio’s estimation, however, the whole thing should never have happened, and that strength and resolve and intimidation would have secured and even better outcome. “If the right president were in charge, would they have done that to America?” he said. “They would have helped them fix the engine and go back on their way. The Iranian leadership are not friends or allies of the United States of America, and last night proved it.”

And here we see Rubio deliberately missing the point. Yes, the Iranians are hostile to the United States, which means their detention of American service members could have escalated into a serious international incident. But it didn’t. We were able to negotiate with a hostile power and rapidly defuse a sensitive situation.

That is a positive outcome. The only way to view it as a negative outcome is if you inhabit the fantasy world in which “strength” – defined as the demonstrated willingness to use force at any given moment – is the cure-all for every international problem. That is Rubio’s position, and he’s arguing that he’d be so tough and hostile towards the Iranians that they would be quaking in existential terror and practically inviting American military excursions into their territory. You can choose to believe that dangerous fiction, or you can look at what happened this week as proof that diplomacy with America’s adversaries can produce good results.

http://www.salon.com/2016/01/14/rubios_desperate_iran_spin_in_his_twisted_neocon_logic_dodging_an_international_crisis_is_somehow_a_bad_thing/



The point bears repeating. The US and Iran are not allies or friends. There is, in fact, great emnity between the two nations. Of course the Iranians took these sailors into custody. Just as we would have done with armed Iranian sailors found in the Chesepeake Bay. The fact is, diplomacy ended peacefully what could have been a drawn out disaster. Good news. Unless you like war.

The GOP doesn't seem to understand that diplomacy is not simply the niceties and ceremony conducted between friendly states.
Diplomacy is often - and most usefully - the practice of furthering the national interests through negotiation with real and potential adversaries.
You know, instead of killing everyone.