The belligerence of the argument makes it evident that this guy is a former Bush official. The views expressed by Dennis Ross in another column, though having significant areas of convergence with this one, are more clear-minded. Yet, even Ross is more sceptical of Iran's intensions than is the objective reality, which leads many commentators to point out that he was a co-founder of AIPAC!
But, to come back to Burns, he writes " The next U.S. president will have little chance of securing peace in the Middle East if he doesn't determine Iran's bottom line on the nuclear issue through talks". Burns has still not grasped the reality that American hegemony is dead and buried. So, what the world expects is not for Obama to determine what Iran's bottom line is on nuclear weapons. What the world wants is to determine if Obama will still hang on to the idea of American exceptionalism and threaten to "bomb Iran back to the stone age??? if it uses its leverage of being capable of continuing to enrich unranium to the point where it could actually produce a nuclear weapon, in order to push its goal of a nuclear weapon-free Middle East and nuclear weapon-free South and Central Asia, and, further down the road, a nuclear-weapon free world?
Humanity wants peace. America has, during the past 8 years but also in Vietnam in the 1960???s and 70???s, tried to force the most barbaric militarism on the world and has had its nose bloodied.
It should by now have become wiser.
We Should Talk to Our Enemies
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In Afghanistan, the new president will face a very difficult set of choices roughly similar to those in Iraq before the surge. The brilliance of Gen. David Petraeus's strategy in Iraq was, in part, to build bridges to formerly bitter foes in the Sunni militias and to cajole and entice them to switch sides. Some are now suggesting that we should deploy a similar strategy with the Taliban rank and file.
While we should have absolutely no interest in sitting down with Qaeda fanatics or the Taliban leadership, does it make sense to try to persuade lower-ranking Taliban supporters to give up the armed struggle and commit to a democratic Afghanistan? While that's a seemingly logical goal, it would be highly problematic in the short term. We would be better served if we first built up a position of much greater military and political strength, and increased security for Afghan villagers. Talking to our adversaries is not always the answer to all our problems, especially in a highly complex environment such as Afghanistan. We have a long way to go before it might be part of a long-term solution there.
America faces a complex and difficult geopolitical landscape. The next president needs to act more creatively and boldly to defend our interests by revalidating diplomacy as a key weapon in our national arsenal and rebuilding our understaffed and underfunded diplomatic corps. Of course he will need to reserve the right to use force against the most vicious and implacable of our foes. More often than not, however, he will find that dialogue and discussion, talking and listening, are the smarter ways to defend our country, end crises and sometimes even sow the seeds of an ultimate peace.
Burns was under secretary of state for political affairs, the highest-ranking American career diplomat, until his retirement in April. He is now a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
© 2008
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