Her Tenure Was a Monumental Failure
Joshua Foust on Jun 04 2008 at 5:16 pm | Filed under: Around the Web, Foreign affairs
Isn’t it great when our Chief Diplomat doesn’t really see the need for diplomacy?
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11 Responses to “Her Tenure Was a Monumental Failure”
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The View From the Bluff: Lance’s Economic and Finance Blog
Well Josh, answer me this: is diplomacy ever impossible? Can there ever exist a regime that can’t be negotiated with? If so, what would make attempts at negotiation with that regime futile? Could it possibly be dangerous even? How?
That’s a fair question, and I honestly don’t have a concrete answer (no one does: there is a lot of leeway in terms of who we consider reconciliable and irreconciliable). But let me ask another question: with Condi–again, our chief diplomat–saying negotiations are pointless, while our highest level military commanders are urging negotiations in lieu of military action… well, what does that say about Bush’s policies? Do you think this is a sad attempt at good-cop bad-cop? And if so, why is the DOD playing the good cop, and the State Department of all agencies playing the bad cop? That doesn’t make sense.
What also doesn’t make sense is why the Bush administration feels North Korea is worth negotiations and prettily worded letters, while Iran is worth only bluster. That, too, is inconsistent, unless the message Bush is sending is that so long as you have a big enough military and nuclear weapons, we’ll talk to you, and otherwise you’ll only get a long list of demand-threats. That is not a healthy message to send either.
Well, President Clinton’s administration showed that there wasn’t much point to negotiating with Iran. And the EU isn’t having any better luck.
North Korea is actually willing to sit down at the table and talk, and even act on those talks (however haltingly.) Iran sits down and walks away from the table at its whim.
I’m honestly curious: how has North Korea acted on the six party talks?
Without commenting on Bush’s policies in general, Rice isn’t saying that there’s no point at all to negotiating with Iran, just that there isn’t much point in doing so while it continues to enrich uranium. In fact she’s urging further diplomatic measures (not military ones as you continually imply), and enlisting the help of European and other countries to implement them. Successfully, I might add.
None of that is to say that Bush’s foreign policy has been sterling, nor that Rice has done a bang-up job, but this particular policy of refusing to negotiate with terrorists, terrorist supporters and generally hostile regimes without some act of good faith on the part of the offending party is neither unique to the Bush Administration, nor a new policy to America (among others) at all.
The problem with beginning talks with Iran while they continue uranium enrichment is that the “talks” have no definite end, and we have seen in the past that once they are started then every other option is removed from the table. Short of outright military intervention, if sanctions are levied against Iran during such talks then the US is accused of scuttling the negotiations, and Iran is handed the ability to play the victim. Meanwhile Iran continues to commit the offensive acts that initiated the talks in the first place. In this way, Iran controls the clock and has all the leverage, and the US has nothing but concessions.
In short, starting talks with Iran before it suspends the enrichment simply allows it to hold the mantle of peace-maker while continue it’s march towards WMD. The talks can go on forever and have absolutely nothing accomplished, whereas insisting on the suspension at least grants the US time to hammer out some mutual understandings without being pressured by Iran’s continued intransigence.
That’s fair to a certain point, except that de-weaponization talks don’t have to be conditioned on ceasing enrichment. For one, there is plenty of data that Iran’s enrichment facilities are not nearly as advanced or effective as either they or the government would like us to think; for another, there is nothing wrong with development of nuclear power plants — especially given Iran’s energy infrastructure, which is in shambles. I guess what I’m getting at is being uncompromising, which captures the Bush administration current approach going back at least to 2003 and the success of bullying Libya, hasn’t gotten us much ground. Since our SOP hasn’t worked well so far, what is the danger in trying a new tack?
I’m not against that (since I tend to agree with you about the effectiveness of most of Bush’s foreign policy — though not all). I just think that going in without any preconditions is going too far towards the other extreme; one that has also proven dangerously ineffective in the past.
In addition, we have other diplomatic relationships to consider as well, and submitting to Iran’s bullying without wresting some good faith concessions first tends to harm relations with allies.
Except that Iran has repeatedly rejected numerous proposals to allow them the use of nuclear power without having to enrich uranium. Plus the fact that developing nuclear power is not very likely to improve Iran’s energy infrastructure, but instead (granting Iran an angel’s intentions) it will just add a bunch of nuclear plants to the crumbling infrastructure and improve nothing.
It’s a silly judgment, since I don’t see how anyone could reach a settlement with Iran under present circumstances. She’s certainly not a failure for expressing that obvious fact.
No one and I mean no one, has successfully negotiated Iran into anything it didn’t want to do so far. And unless you get a government there that doesn’t want the sanctions regime, you’re probably only left with a nonintervention guarantee in exchange for the suspension of the nuclear program, to get a settlement that’s anywhere near something they might like.
Yet neither side will pledge that given the nature of their adversary. Iran understands that if it possesses nuclear weapons (or even the suspicion that it might), it is immune to attack by the United States. The United States understands that if it pledges never to attack, it is unable to threaten or curtail Iran henceforth. This is a very different situation from the hermits in the DPRK, which are not intimately involved in regional politics and security. There isn’t a troublespot in the Middle East that Iran isn’t involved in from Lebanon to Yemen.
If the sanctions regime isn’t a solvent negotiable trade and you can’t pledge nonintervention, what do you want to talk about, hot girls and fast cars?
I have a silly question…
Why do we assume that “diplomacy” is the same as “making nice?”
Who ever said it was? I certainly didn’t.
In that case, what’s wrong with what Rice is doing?