Let's Talk

One of the most bizarre tenets of the current US regime is that it refuses to talk to putative enemies. Even before the famous "Axis of Evil" speech, the Bush administration has made it clear that negotiating with what it considered to be "rogue nations" would be a form of reward for such despicable behavior, and the US would have none of that. The results so far have not exactly been noteworthy, except in the negative sense. We have what can only be seen as failure in the Iraq War, a nuclear detonation in North Korea, and the continued processing of plutonium in Iran as a precursor to a nuclear detonation. Those failures are bringing out calls across the political spectrum for a shift in policy. The response from our Dear Leader to those calls is noted in today's NY Times.

The question arises: Is any of this cutting ice with the administration?

Officially, the administration is sticking to form. President Bush said as much during a news conference on Wednesday, when he was asked, again, whether he would be willing to work with Iran and Syria if it was determined that they could help bring stability to Iraq, their neighbor. [Emphasis added]

While the article describes the internal debate which is going on in the White House, it is clear which side is currently winning the debate, given the President's comments that Syria and Iran know what they have to do. His answer was indeed "sticking to form": we don't speak with other nations, we issue orders. It doesn't appear that there will be any shift from "stay the course" in this area, either.

The results will be predictable, as the rest of the world knows:

...But the administration will continue to take hits over not talking to its enemies until it can demonstrably show that this strategy has had results, diplomats said. Said one European diplomat in Washington: “They’ve isolated Cuba for 40 years, and you see how well that’s worked.”

Indeed.