The Value of Talk
It is an unfortunate fact that American elections nowadays bring out a special sort of incoherence in foreign policy discussions. The on-going debate over whether talking to Iran represents some sort of “appeasement” would be amusing if it did not have such high stakes attached to it.
Let’s begin with the basics. The United States has almost always spoken to its adversaries. Even Ronald Reagan was willing to deal with our enemies. He allowed negotiations with the Soviets on a huge number of issues, and met personally with the Soviet leadership when practicable. Reagan also, by the way, was willing to trade arms for hostages in the Iran-Contra fiasco, so holding him out as a paragon of principled non-engagement is more than a little suspect.
Not only has the United States historically met with enemies, no one particularly considered such meetings to represent appeasement. Appeasement is not about negotiations; appeasement is about capitulation under threat. No one is proposing to capitulate on anything in particular.
There are some more interesting and complex issues, however, within the whole meeting with our adversaries debate. The two significant concerns have to do with the issue of legitimacy and the evolutions of negotiation dynamics.
One of the main criticisms of talking to our enemies is that it supposedly legitimizes them. High-level direct talks with the United States are a valuable prize, in this interpretation, and should only be given out in return for significant concessions. By this logic, agreeing to talks without pre-conditions is itself a major concession and surrenders an important source of American leverage. There is a certain logic to this argument, and it has the benefit of sounding suitably sophisticated. The only problem with it is that it isn’t true. We Americans like to think of ourselves as all-important, but really, is there any evidence that Hugo Chavez or Raul Castro or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are desperate for a sit-down with an American leader? Our enemies benefit from demonizing us. The don’t necessarily profit from negotiating with us any more than we do with them. In a case like North Korea where the leadership has clearly sought to initiate one-on-one talks with the United States, there may be some truth that the promise of talks are themselves a useful leverage, but as a practical matter, most of our adversaries benefit more from our unceasing hostility than from our attempts to open dialogue. Quite to the contrary, in many cases, our simple willingness to talk undermines some of our enemies because it puts a lie to their claims that the United States is a hostile power intent on regime change.
The second important issue to consider is the evolution of negotiation dynamics. Once negotiations begin, they tend to be judged on the basis of whether an agreement is reached. Lack of accord is deemed failure, whereas agreements, no matter how flawed, are often judged as successes. Given this dynamic, there is a reason to resist opening negotiations which are certain to be unproductive simply because of the possibility of being pressured into accepting a bad agreement. But is there any reason to assume that negotiations with a country like Iran are certain to be fruitless? Are there really no potential areas of agreement? At a minimum, we could explore the issue of peaceful uses of nuclear energy. And as Zbigniew Brezinski and William Odom point out there is also the fact that Iran is also a potential ally against al Qaeda. The notion that we have no grounds for a productive discussion with Iran is absurd.
We shouldn’t talk for the sake of talking. In cases where foreign leaders seem desperate to meet with the United States, we ought to use that leverage. And in those rare cases where we have no common interests at all, we should avoid the temptation to enter into fruitless discussions. But as a practical matter, those cases will be few and far between.
There are some reasonable and sophisticated reasons for being reluctant to negotiate with adversaries, but when examined closely even those reasons tend to be overstated in the current debate.
