"Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals"
"We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into
The above comments are from a speech President Bush delivered today to the Israeli Knesset. Once again, our President abdicated his responsibility to accomplish the hard work of leadership, and repeated a pattern of falling back on the military as his preferred choice to address conflict. He again cast US negotiators as helpless victims of foreign duplicity and confused real solutions with imagined problems. If Reagan negotiated with the Soviets, one wonders why Bush is so unable to negotiate with
Yes, appeasement is a bad idea, but that’s not what we are talking about here. We are talking about negotiation (a prerequisite to problem resolution taught in almost every leadership book in the world). To not know the difference is irresponsible and undermines his ability to lead.
He’s ability to lead is undermined by a misconception about what true negotiation really is. He seems to view it as a hard bargain, where both sides take from the other and the one who takes the most wins (often destroying relationships in the process). Much like war, this process has one winner and one loser. The alternative to the hard bargain is the “friendly” bargain. Here each side (or at least one side) views the other as friends and emphasizes agreement and the relationship as the goal, rather than victory. This approach is good at producing agreements quickly, but quite often these are shabby. And paradoxically, giving in on interests can be viewed as weak and often does little to strengthen the relationship. This second approach is what Bush referred to when he says “appeasement”. But that isn’t negotiation, that is capitulation.
The problem with these approaches is that neither of them is actually negotiating. They are limited and unprincipled, and calling them negotiation is like putting money in a bank savings account and calling it investing. It’s loosely related, but it’s not the same thing.
True negotiation is an entirely different animal. True negotiation is done “on the merits”. It’s based on principles and focuses on meeting underlying interest, not superficial positions. It is soft on the people, but hard on the problems. It recognizes that giving in on underlying interests to protect a relationship might end up jeopardizing both, so it is hard on the interests. Yet, it also recognizes that reducing the “Other” to “the enemy” and ignoring their legitimate interests, destroys the partnership and any chance of creating agreement that is sustainable. So it soft on the people and views the “others” underlying interests as part of the solution. Finally, it’s criteria based and demands that any agreement reflect a fair “objective criteria” independent of either side’s mere desires.
It’s this type of negotiation that resulted in the breakthroughs in
A true leader engages others in their vision, enrolls them in the plans and compels them toward action. Negotiation is part of this. Yes, it’s hard work, and no it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes courage, dedication, and commitment, but the outcome is far better than alternative. Of course, it’s much easier to simply apply Power and bend “the other” to our will (thereby avoiding the need to negotiate). But this short term fix makes ultimate resolution even more difficult because it leaves the underlying issues unaddressed while turning friends into into adversaries.
President Bush states that
It may feel good to portray ourselves as the victim of Iranian deception, but if we are serious about a human life, then we need to have the courage to get past our artificial sense of self righteousness. It’s time we take responsibility for our actions (all of them, not just the ones we like), and get on with the hard work of resolving this conflict.
