WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON -- Should the next president sit down with the leaders of Iran, or North Korea, just to chat?
Around that question revolves one of the few national security disagreements between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama as they struggle to define themselves in advance of Tuesday's Democratic primaries in Maryland and elsewhere.
On other issues - the war in Iraq, nuclear proliferation, defense spending - it's difficult to see much daylight between the two.
Both say they would, as president, accelerate the troop withdrawals from Iraq. Both say they would leave some troops there, but neither has said how many or for what purpose.
"Nearly all of them should be out within a year," Clinton said in their most recent debate Jan. 31.
Obama declared in that debate that "I will end this war. We will not have a permanent occupation." But he also said that the United States will "need to have a strike force that can take out potential terrorist bases that get set up in Iraq."
Perhaps Clinton summed up their positions on Iraq most concisely: "There are no good options here. We have to untangle ourselves and navigate through some very treacherous terrain."
A sharper difference emerged early in the campaign on July 23, when Clinton and Obama had to face this debate question:
Would you meet separately, without preconditions, with the leaders of North Korea, Iran, Syria, Cuba and Venezuela in order to bridge the gaps that divide our countries?
No way, said Clinton.
Absolutely, said Obama.
"The notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them, which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration, is ridiculous," Obama said.
Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan met with leaders of the Soviet Union, Obama said. "They understood that we may not trust them, they may pose an extraordinary danger to this country, but we have an obligation to find areas where we can potentially move forward."
But Clinton, in that July debate, stood her ground. "I will promise a very vigorous diplomatic effort," she explained. But "I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes. ... I will use a lot of high-level presidential envoys to test the waters, to feel the way."
No presidential meetings should be held "until we know better what the way forward would be," she said.
How to interpret these two stances?
