Iran, Lebanon and North Korea: Why Condi can't get it right

Negotiate: To confer with another or others in order to come to terms or reach an agreement.

A few weeks back, just when I'd begun to hope for a real breakthrough in our diplomatic efforts with Iran--one promised by the trailers for the most recent round of talk shows, all of which proclaimed that Rice had offered to negotiate with Iran--I tuned in anxiously in hopes of something, well, hopeful.

What did I find? Rice offered to negotiate with Iran, but only after they comply, unconditionally, with each of the terms she's set out, in advance. This is a novel approach, given that the whole point of a negotiation is to discuss and agree on terms. Yet, that's the offer Rice is making: if I get exactly what I want up front, I'll talk to you. Seems to me that's a little like saying you're open to discussing your marital problems, but only after you finalize the divorce.

Her response to the current violence in Lebanon and Israel is similarly nonsensical. She won't call for an immediate cease-fire because she thinks it's time to deal with the "root" cause of the violence. Apparently, she's so afraid the violence will recur she can't bring herself to call a halt to it. Instead, she prefers it to go on, unchecked, while she bones up on theoretical constructs around violence and its "root" causes. She would save a great deal of time and energy (not to mention wasted human lives) if she understood that violence is the natural human response to the failure to negotiate successfully.

The root cause of the violence in the Middle East is not Hezbollah, it is the fact that even when agreements are made, they are not upheld. Israel has violated international law since it encroached on the territory given to the Palestinians, by the United Nations, in 1967. Israel's historic subjugation and abuse of the Palestinian people, coupled with their willingness to imprison large numbers of Arabs (who may or may not be guilty of any crime) is the root cause of the violence in the Middle East.

If we want to resolve the issues in the Middle East peacefully, we must use our power to enforce the previously agreed upon negotiations and call for an immediate cease-fire. This would build credibility with the Palestinians, and would make it possible for further negotiations to take place. Unless/until we take responsibility for Israel's failure to live by the 1967 borders, we will simply be supporting Israel's decision to abuse the Palestinian people.

Surprisingly, Dr. Rice does not appear to understand the importance of keeping our commitments in regard to prior negotiations. Nor does she seem to understand that violence begets more violence. But most surprising to me is that she fails to recognize that people simply can not be expected to respond positively to having their land taken, walls built to segregate them, or to being forced to endure constant military actions meant to subdue, harass or kill them.

She is also woefully ignorant of another pretty basic premise: if you want to be an example to the world, you have to live by your word. When leaders of so-called democratic nations (like Israel and the United States) say they support the spread of Democracy, most people expect that to mean that democratically elected governments will be recognized by those leaders. But, clearly, that is not the case. When the United States and Israel refused to recognize the Palestinian people's clear choice for self-rule (a government led by Hamas) they lost all credibility as proponents of Democracy, and are now simply known as the world's biggest jerks with the world's biggest guns.

The United States has been similarly dismissive in its approach to North Korea. When Jimmy Carter negotiated with them in 1994, we promised to deliver two light-water nuclear reactors, in exhange for their promise not to build power plants that might later be used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. We did not deliver. Additionally, we have blown off every attempt on their part to address that failure. Yet, every news story I've heard in the past several weeks has focused solely on North Korea's refusal to stop building nuclear weapons.

What's more, when North Korea attempted to initiate one-on-one negotiations with us, we refused. We're holding diplomacy as a carrot! We're blackmailing other countries by refusing to talk with them unless we get what we want first!

As long as the U.S. and Israel continue to refuse to negotiate with their adversaries, whether they be Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran or North Korea, they are forcing the cycle of violence to cointinue. By refusing to engage in diplomacy, both the U.S. and Israel are not only actively preventing the peace process from unfolding, they are the single biggest contributors to the violence they say they're trying to end.