Soccer Dad

Talking with the bad guys

Back in early 2000, Henry Siegman wrote a lengthy essay in Foreign Affairs, Being Hafiz Assad in which he argued that Assad was ready to make peace with Israel. Foreign Affairs website summarized the article like this:

Unleashing Hezbollah, stalling talks, and having the state-run media spew anti-Israel vitriol hardly seem pacific, but Syria's dictator has a consistent if chilly peace strategy.

The argument was absurd. The three actions taken by Assad and discussed by Siegman all showed that he wasn't interested in peace. Yet by Siegman waving his hands and declaring Assad was interested in peace, somehow we were supposed to believe that the belligerency against Israel was somehow a mask for his real intentions.

Not surprisingly, the elder Assad died shortly after the article appeared. He never concluded a peace deal with Israel.

This sort of misplaced optimism in the benign intentions of tyrants continues. The big news of the day is that the United States is now talking to Iran about stabilizing Iraq.

In briefings to reporters afterward, the chief negotiators -- U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan C. Crocker and Iran's ambassador to Baghdad, Hassan Kazemi Qomi -- said the talks focused solely on Iraq and did not stray into the contentious areas of Iran's nuclear program or the recent detentions of four Iranian American citizens by Tehran.

In other words, in areas where the United States had a grievance against Iran, the American government was quiet. To David Ignatius that's a good thing, as he believes that it's important for the U.S. to Countering Iran's Distrust.

Iran hates negotiations. That's another truth that mind readers can discern. Tehran was so uncertain about who should meet with Crocker that its ambassador to Baghdad, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, had to return home for consultations. The Iranians don't like having to take positions before there is a consensus within the ruling elite, and on the question of dealing with America, a battle still rages. Pragmatists in Tehran quote former secretary of state Henry Kissinger about shared U.S. and Iranian national interests. But hard-liners associated with the Revolutionary Guard insist that any dialogue with America is a potential trap.

In other words by negotiating with the Mullahs, the United states is punishing Tehran. What an excellent idea.

But as JudeoPundit observed, Tehran doesn't seem to believe that it's being punished. Instead of reading tea leaves and seeing what he wants to see, Judeopundit actually checked a government controlled publication and found this.

Through its dominant presence in the four-hour negotiations in Baghdad, Iran showed that it has no fear of talking with the United States. If the members of the U.S. delegation adopt a fair approach and commit themselves to negotiations on an equal footing, and, instead of the usual U.S. posturing, engage in real negotiations and speak as clearly as the Iranian negotiators, then additional meetings would also be possible.

By foregoing discussions of Iran's nuclear ambitions or the arrests of American citizens, the United States has ceded all the initiative to Tehran.

Darrell Issa is undeterred by Syria's mischief. He thinks talks are important regardless and presents the Case for talking to Syria.

So why should the United States talk with a dictatorship that supports terrorism, stokes conflict in the Middle East and fails to meet the commitments it makes? What positive results could this month's meeting between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Syrian counterpart, Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, possibly yield?

During my last trip to Syria, in April, I had the privilege of meeting some of the brave men and women who are pushing to reform the Syrian government. Foremost among them is Riad Seif, a former member of the Syrian parliament. Seif was a prominent Damascus businessman until he became disillusioned with corruption and began calling for change in the 1990s. The regime responded by heavily taxing his factory and driving his business into the ground. When that failed to silence Seif, the regime arrested him. Although Seif was released from prison last year, he still is banned from voting, running for office or traveling. Nonetheless, Seif continues to lead a coalition of opposition groups.

The work of Raid Seif and others like him offers the best hope for reform and deserves U.S. support. Damascus has done its best to stifle efforts to create a prosperous and just Syria, routinely jailing those who call for change or sending the secret police to harass activists and their families.

So talking with Syria, according to Issa will strengthen the reformers. Good thought. Except there's evidence to the contrary. Barry Rubin recently wrote:

Released after four years in 2006, Homsi immediately left the country, saying there was no possibility of changing the regime by reform and that any criticism would bring more imprisonment. He wrote Pelosi a letter urging her not to visit Syria as such a step would only strengthen the regime. Last week, the government seized all of his assets in the country, leaving his family destitute.
Kamal Labwani, head of the Liberal Democratic Gathering, visited the United States in 2005, including meetings with human rights' groups and a trip to the White House. He told the Americans he saw that he would be arrested once he got back home. Sure enough, the Syrian police grabbed him at Damascus airport in November 2005.
But he was not tried. After all, the regime reasoned, perhaps the United States might get even tougher with Syria if they repressed a man who had just been a White House guest. Last week, confident that the current administration and its presumed Democratic successors were caving in, the government sentenced Labwani to life imprisonment, "kindly" commuted to 12 years with hard labor. The charge? "Inciting a foreign state to attack Syria."

In general he concludes

The lessons about these regimes' extremist behavior should be clear by now. When the West extends its hand in offered friendship, they interpret this as hands raised in surrender.

Cheat Seeking Misslies argues

One of the controversial and much-trounced points of the Iraq Study Group that I've always agreed with is the need to open talks with Iran. I'm not hopeful that they'll go anywhere, but not talking isn't going anywhere either.

And with the Bush admin at the table instead of Kerry, we can be fairly sure the talks will proceed as they should, with a near-complete lack of trust and a near-fanatical commitment to verification.

I'm sure that there are circumstances where such talks can help. But when the United States avoids the topics that Iran (and Syria) wishes to avoid and fails to apply pressure to these regimes, it only serves to strengthen the bad guys. It looks as if the U.S. is talking softly, but that there's no big stick apparent.

Iran, Syria, Diplomacy.