Bush is Mixed Up on Foreign Relations Again

"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 Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is - the false comfort of appeasement."

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 Iran.

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 Northern Ireland. After almost thirty years of bloody conflict, the opposing parties in Northern Ireland eventually signed an agreement about how to share power, thus bringing to an end the conflict that had claimed so many lives and caused such human suffering. To reject the use of such a tool is irresponsible.

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 Iran can’t be trusted and believes we are victims of their duplicity, hopelessly cast on a course to war. But have we not also done things to abuse that same trust? Let’s not forget that in 1953 the United States used the CIA to stage a coup of the democratically elected prime minister of Iran. And for more than a decade during the Iran/Iraq war, it was the US who sent weapons to support Iran’s enemy, Iraq. When was the last time Iran did anything even close to that to us?

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.

Update: Looks like CNN was reporting that White House made it clear this speech was talking about Obama.


On a lighter note... Here is a pretty cool segment where Chris Matthews skewers a right wing radio DJ for mindlessly parroting the "appeasement" talking points.