Home

The Iraq Study Group report highlights something that deserves better treatment than it receives in our political/media system: the problem with Americans negotiating for anything.

Basically, Americans look at negotiating with Iran, Syria or anyone else the same way they do business deals: the negotiators go in, they apply whatever skills they have at “doing the deal,” but they get the deal done. Failing to do so results in the perception that the negotiations were a failure, and thus the negotiators are failures. This is a tag no American can stand to be stuck with. People in other cultures are just as keen in “getting something done” in negotiations. But they approach the problem with two very different perspectives than Americans do. The first is a longer view of time than Americans have, which isn’t saying much since Americans define the “long term” as after lunch. The second is that most people outside the U.S.–especially in non-Western cultures–put a higher degree of value on relationship developing first before they get down to business.

The reason for the second is simple: without the imposition of the legal and social system that exists within the U.S., they start with a complete lack of trust for the opposite side. That trust has to be developed, which takes place with the development of a relationship. If and only if and when that relationship is developed–and that can take a lot of time–substantive negotiations can begin. It’s easier for foreigners to walk away from a deal for the reason that “they can’t trust these people” than it is for Americans.

We found this out in arms negotiations with the Soviets. The Americans were under higher pressure to “get the deal done” than the Soviets were, which automatically strengthened the Soviets’ position. Only Ronald Reagan managed to bring himself to realise that he couldn’t trust the Soviets and thus curtail negotiations with them until his own position was stronger. The memory of this deeply influences George W. Bush, which is why he is adverse to starting discussions with Iran and Syria.

A more productive approach would be to have a meeting in a venue where concrete results weren’t expected. In an American context, this means a golf course. Let’s say that Bush invites Ahmadinejad to Medina G&CC near Chicago. Since the clubhouse looks like a mosque, Ahmadinejad would think he was winning up front, which would make him overconfident, a besetting weakness of him. But on a golf course the two could size each other up face to face, watching as each other deals with the ups and downs of the game and each other. Then Bush could figure out how he might like to proceed based on what he saw himself rather than something stupid his advisers might come up with.

This example is a little lighthearted but my intent is to illustrate the importance and possibility of relationship building before serious haggling begins. It may take time, a lot more time than Americans are used to giving such things these days. (This wasn’t always the case in the past.) But it would be time well spent. My Sudanese imam friend used to tell me that, when his mother went to market, she would haggle so hard with the vendors that he would become embarrassed. We’re entering a region of expert negotiators. We need to show some wisdom ourselves.

As you might expect, we’re not surprised that James Baker’s committee has supported the “right of return” and a Middle East peace conference without Israel.

Baker’s thinking is exactly the same as the reason Russia got into bed with Iran: cash flow. The oil industry’s main source of raw material is the Persian Gulf, and many in that business have felt that Israel was the main source of instability of that supply as an irritant to their clients, the Arabs. This line of thinking is blind to the serious problems of Arab and Islamic politics, not the least of which is the Sunni-Shi’a divide and the ongoing rivallry of Iran with its neighbours across the Gulf.

Will the U.S. give in to this line of thinking? It would be the supreme irony that liberals, who generally hate the oil industry, are considering giving into the oil industry’s longest running urban legend (get rid of Israel and you get rid of the problems in the Persian Gulf) to further their own ambitions. But, as they say, politics makes for strange bedfellows.

It is time to pray!

Last year we stated that Iran’s greater objective than wiping Israel off of the map was to take control of both sides of the Persian Gulf, which would include Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the other Gulf states. Such an assesment was and is a minority view, both by those who support Israel (the evangelicals) and Americans who would as soon see Israel wiped off of the map themselves (James Baker.)

It looks like this is in point of fact the case, and that Saudi Arabia has no intention of allowing this to happen. This explains their support of the Sunnis in Iraq and the Christians and other non-Shi’a groups in Lebanon. The Sunni-Shi’a divide is not only religious but geopolitical.

This kind of thing does in fact screw up a lot of people’s plans for the Middle East. It makes the Islamicists job impossible because it calls into question who in fact is the real leader of Islam (and that is the central problem of Islamic politics.) Oil people dislike the endless instability of their product’s supply. And those who are looking for democracy in the Middle East can’t handle the fact that holding power is like winning to Vince Lombardi: it isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. Democracy and representative government are real nuisances to power holding, something the U.S. will find out the hard way if it ever elects Hillary Clinton as President.

There are some who think that the U.S. invaded Iraq to create (or at least make worse) this problem. Unfortunately our government just isn’t that clever. Clever or not, the natural divisions of Islam and the Middle East are the only thing that stand in the way of Islamicist victory, and we should be thankful that Genesis 16:12 continues to come true.

And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.

Today, of course, is AIDS awareness day. However, many Christians are unsympathetic to the whole epidemic, and this has subjected them to attack from the likes of Rick Warren, to say nothing of those on the left.

The basic problem, as is the case with many things, is political.

Back in the 1980’s, gay activists made the decision to couple AIDS awareness and the advancement of the gay agenda. You do one, you accept the other. Their idea was to play on people’s sympathies to advance themselves. In doing this they made suffering and dying from AIDS for homosexuals what martyrdom is for jihadis, i.e., a sacrament.

The backwash for this was that those who had no sympathies with the homosexual agenda don’t have any for AIDS either, even though most AIDS sufferers outside the developed world didn’t acquire the disease from homosex, and many not even voluntarily. As was the case with gay marriage, the leadership of the homosexual community isn’t as clever as it thinks it is.

This, to my mind, is the central reason why curing AIDS is so far down the list of most Christians’ agenda. It’s unfair for those in the developed world, where the best long-term hope comes from the abstinence programmes that Christian churches advocate. But the developed world and the Third World frequently run at cross-purposes with each other. And if that conflict isn’t resolved–a scenario that influenced The Island Chronicles–the AIDS business will fall further down people’s agenda than it already has.