I’ve been involved in a couple of discussions both in person and on the internet regarding diplomacy. In particular, we have major issues evolving in both Sudan and Iran, although both are completely different in circumstance.
I’m as much a hawk as anyone, so I think I can say that nobody ever wants to use force unless it is necessary. I have sons who go in harm’s way when that happens, and I have friends who worry about their loved ones in that circumstance. It is not an easy choice to make. No President ever made that decision without thinking of the losses first.
Diplomacy is sometimes hailed as the cure-all. Give Peace a Chance, and all that. But the nature of diplomacy is that it is unsuited for resolving problems such as those in Iran and Sudan. Time.
Consider for a moment an imaginary situation. Bob is a bully. Sam is the 98-pound weakling. Bob binds Sam’s hands and ties him to a tree, hitting him with a big stick. John shows up and tries to convince Bob that he should stop beating Sam. Bob ignores him for a while, then talks, only hitting Sam between sentences. John has a convincing argument, but Bob really wants to keep hitting Sam, so he comes up with all kinds of reasons why he shouldn’t stop. Kofi arrives and tells John that maybe he should let Bob and Sam resolve their differences on their own. John now tries to reason with both Bob and Kofi. Sam continues to get hit with a stick. Sam dies during the process. Problem solved.
A different tack. John comes up with a larger stick in his hand and tells Bob to stop or John will start beating him. If Bob knows John will do it, he might stop.
But if Bob thinks John doesn’t have the will to hit him, he’ll continue. If John then continues to try reason, Bob is convinced he is safe. If Kofi shows up, Sam is dead.
The government of Sudan is, at a minimum, turning a blind eye on the Muslims attacking, killing, raping the blacks in their country. If standard diplomacy is used, the blacks will all be dead or starving in refugee camps before anything is actually done. Problem solved. No more violence.
The mullahs in Iran have stated quite bluntly they intend to build nuclear weapons and use them to destroy Israel. If standard diplomacy prevails, they will have ample time to do just that. Problem solved. Jews are dead.
Diplomacy is only as effective as the threat a miscreant perceives. Sanctions have never worked. Talk has never worked. Bribes have never worked. Ever. Only credible threats work.
If you want violence to end, you must be able to credibly threaten greater violence. If Iran or Sudan felt there was a real possiblility of some form of military action being taken against them, things would change. For that threat to be credible, people in this country must understand that the sniping going on during an election year is telling the world we really aren’t serious. If they can just hold out until a new Administration is in place, they’ll be better able to continue on their merry way. So they will pause and talk for a while to try and give the impression they are really willing to do what we want, but they just need to have the pot sweetened a little.
Sam dies during the process. Problem solved.
*****UPDATE*****
…from Mark Alexander at The Federalist:
Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking intelligence officer ever to defect from the Soviet bloc, says “KGB priority number one at that time was to damage American power, judgment, and credibility. … As a spy chief and a general in the former Soviet satellite of Romania, I produced the very same vitriol Kerry repeated to the U.S. Congress almost word for word and planted it in leftist movements. KGB chairman Yuri Andropov managed our anti-Vietnam War operation. He often bragged about having damaged the U.S. foreign-policy consensus, poisoned domestic debate in the U.S., and built a credibility gap between America and European public opinion through our disinformation operations. Vietnam was, he once told me, ‘our most significant success’.”
You can’t have diplomacy that really works in an environment like that.