One of the hardest decisions a president of the United States is obligated to make is that of going to war. It is a decision, however, that pales in comparison to the degree of difficulty in making peace when one's enemy remains unvanquished. With the release of Osama bin Laden's latest media communiqué offering a truce to the US, President Bush must decide whether to stick to the moribund old cliché "we don't negotiate with terrorists," or whether he should use this as a potential opportunity to redirect global politics along a path that serves US national interests.
| It's a high bar to convince us that we should negotiate with Binny. |
Truth be told, almost all nation-states, including our own, have negotiated with terrorists. Israel's tough old soldier Yitzhak Rabin buried the hatchet with Yasser Arafat, and thus engendered a peace process that, despite many fits and starts, has steadily moved toward the creation of an independent and democratic Palestinian state.
| Not a good example to use. The 'roadmap' is roadkill, and it's been Sharon, not Rabin, that's moved to make peace even barely possible by giving the Paleos the responsibility of what they've asked for: a state. With really high walls. Now the Paleos are going to demand something from their leaders that heretofore has been utterly foreign: accountability. |
A vocal minority called Rabin soft on terrorism, but most Israelis understood he was acting in the country's best interests. President Reagan was credited for negotiating the release of American hostages with Iran, the leading state-sponsor of terror in modern times.
| As I recall, Reagan's negotiating line was along the lines of "you'd better make a deal with President Carter, because it's the best deal you'll get." If only Ronnie had remembered this instead of sending Ollie to Teheran with a cake. |
Under Reagan and the first President Bush, Iraq was removed from the State Department's list of terror sponsors in order to enable diplomatic engagement. When diplomacy failed and Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, Mr. Bush adroitly marshaled the finest international coalition ever to be assembled. He lost the next US presidential election, but not because of his policies toward Iraq. Recently, Indonesia and Britain have made peace with Aceh and IRA terrorists respectively, and the US has come to terms with Libya's terrorist-sponsoring leader Muammar Qaddafi. Despite the tired public rhetoric of denial, negotiating with terrorists is the norm in international affairs.
| So is surrendering to them, as Europeans have demonstrated with their many deals. That doesn't make it a good idea for us. |
Regrettably, even though we continue to eliminate Al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan and other locales, due in part to the collateral damage these strikes produce, there seems to be no shortage of enraged Muslims to take their place.
| There's never a shortage of seethe in the world. I've always gone long in seethe futures which is why I have more money than Bill Gates. |
Indeed, the US invasion of Iraq has been judged by many experts as the premier recruiting tool for the global jihadist movement. Simply put, there are more anti-US Muslims willing to use terror to strike at us today than there were on Sept. 11, 2001.
| And fewer anti-US Muslims who have succeeded in killing Americans than on 9/11. They can be willing all they want as long as they're impotent. The real issue is how to demonstrate to them that the best way to get rid of the Great Satan is to put down their rifle and pick up a book on computer programming. |
If our goal is to reverse this trend, the question is simple: Are we better off negotiating with Mr. bin Laden? If we can capture or kill him, certainly the US can rightfully claim justice has been served against the perpetrators of 9/11. Because revenge is the sweetest of our dark sweet dreams, bin Laden's demise will bring no small degree of personal satisfaction to many people. But if we kill him with a well-aimed smart bomb, or if he remains in hiding as a living symbol of a growing anti-US resistance in the Muslim world, will the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan lay down their arms?
| Of course not, and we've never said otherwise. |
Leading US government officials have said time and again that bin Laden's death or capture will not engender these results. Thus, if our wisest men have decided that our present policy toward bin Laden will not help reduce the threat of terrorism, what might help? Does our yearning for revenge outweigh the potential value we might gain by negotiating with bin Laden?
| Let me think about that a moment. ... um ... hell yeah. Especially since you still haven't explained the value of 'negotiating' with a man who has killed over 3,000 of our citizens, and would like to up that by an order of magnitude or two. Frankly, pal, it's up to you to make the case, and all you've done to this point is berate the rest of us for not being as smart as you. |
If our goal is to roll back terrorism and reduce its global appeal, sooner or later we are going to have to deal directly with terrorists. Even if such negotiations fail, history has shown that a silver lining is often found. In Colombia, the Pastrana administration pursued peace with FARC terrorists only to find that they were false partners. FARC's duplicity revealed to the Colombian people that a military response was necessary, and this energized the Colombian government to legitimately escalate the war.
In that case we're all set because most everyone with any common sense -- this excludes the Looney Left, of course -- understands that al-Qaeda is the most false of false partners. Anyone wonder how long we'd need to demonstrate Zarqawi to be a 'false partner' more interested in grotesque murder than peace? Anyone question the commitment of Zawahiri to killing crusaders and infidels (not himself, you understand, his chubby, lamb-grease stained fingers are busy at the moment, but he'll send someone)? Any doubts as to how long we'd have to 'negotiate' with Binny before he showed his true nature?
Of course not. Insight can take years or it can be gained in an instant. Mine came right about the moment the second plane hit the WTC. When are you going to get your brilliant flash? |
The same might be true by now engaging with bin Laden. I very much doubt that his offer to negotiate is genuine, but if we cannot make a deal that is acceptable, President Bush can show the world that bin Laden is a bogus partner, thus undermining his undeniable legitimacy in parts of the Muslim world.
| In the meantime, Binny and his boys will use the time -- they call it a 'hudna', a word you should learn with its true meaning -- to rebuild, regroup and rethink how they're going to kill infidels. It seems to me, a mere red-state stoop with nowhere near your insight, that such a hudna would make it tougher for us later on to find and kill al-Qaeda. Since Binny's call is a clear admission that al-Qaeda is losing, why not keep the pressure on? |
In the all important battle for global public opinion, the US might be able to use this opportunity to reverse some of the decline we have suffered in Iraq.
| The Iraqis have a constitution and very soon, a seated, representative, elected government. The Sunnis are ratting out the terrs, the Shi'a are putting a lid on their crazies, and the Kurds are making money and sipping sweet tea. The Afghans have a government and are back to their traditional ways. They understand what we've done, even if the 'elites' of Western Europe and blue-state America can't figure it out. |
Ultimately, if negotiations fail, CIA Predator drones and elite military units can again be sent on search and destroy missions against Al Qaeda. By calling to the table bin Laden's truce offer, we do not give up the military option; however, if we play this right, even if negotiations fail, we may have more to gain than to lose by exploring peace.
| And in the meantime, we look weak and lose face in the Arab world. We would no longer ride the 'strong horse', we'd be breaking our word to a good many families across our country, and we'd cause our true friends in the world to wonder if we've gone daft. |
Douglas A. Borer, an associate professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., is the author of "Superpowers Defeated: Vietnam and Afghanistan Compared."| Don't quit your day job, Doug. |
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