May 23, 2008--Let's Make A Deal

While John McCain and Barack Obama begin a long-distance debate about how best to deal with our “enemies,” whether or not we should talk with Iran or Hamas or Hezbollah or Syria or whoever is left in the Axis of Evil, all of this with the understanding that we have “a special relationship” with Israel and need to keep their defense and survival front and center, in the meantime, Israel appears to be talking with one of its own worst enemies, Syria. And according to the New York Times may be working out a deal. (Article linked below.)

Put aside for the moment the current political back-and-forth about what Nixon was up to when he had Henry Kissinger negotiate secretly in Paris with the North Vietnamese (and winning a Noble Prize in the process); or what Reagan was up to when he made nuclear disarmament deals with “The Evil Empire”; or again what Nixon was working out with Chairman Mao; and forget as well what George W. Bush managed to work out with two other Hitlers, Muammar al-Quaddifi and Kim Jong-il. And even forget John McCain’s own involvement in reestablishing normal diplomatic and economic relations with Vietnam, a country in which he was held prisoner and tortured.

This we aren’t hearing about from McCain or his sycophant Joe Lieberman as they beat up on Obama about his eagerness to engage in discussions with Iran and others. I am sure that the still green Obama got tangled up in what he said at one of the early Democratic debates about his willingness to even meet with the “tyrant” Mahmoud Abadinejad during his first year in office—did he say that he would do so “without preconditions” or did he mean what he now calls “tough diplomacy”?

For the sake of discussion, no matter about any of this, though it will fester as yet another distraction while we struggle to have a real debate about the two candidates’ very different approaches to foreign policy. Both will be demonized and caricatured—McCain as wanting to keep troops in Iraq for 100 years, Obama for being naïve in his approach to Islamofascism.

But if we want a living case study of what might be gained by negotiating with one’s enemies there may not be a better current example that Israel’s talks with Syria.

If McCain feels that this kind of diplomacy only makes things more dangerous for Israel, he might want to take a look at why the Israelis are engaged in the process. It can only be because they think if they can work out some sort of accommodation with the Syrians (remember that Egypt used to be an archenemy?) they will become safer. By “negotiating away” the Golan Heights they might get Syria to agree not to allow Iran to use Syria as a base for its support of Israel’s even greater enemies—Hamas and Hezbollah.

And since deals have to be two-sided, what would Syria get from agreeing to a comprehensive peace treaty with Israel? According to reports, Syria obviously wants to reclaim the Golan Heights, which they lost to Israel in 1967, and have better relations with the United States because they too are worried about too much Iranian influence in the region. Specifically, in Syria where it is considerable and thus threatening to the current secular regime. Iran, as any sane analyst understands, has been the big winner in the United States’ war with Iraq, and one consequence of that is that they are spreading their reach over much of the Middle East.

This is far from a done deal, but among nations who invented and over the centuries perfected deal-making in souks and bazaars, it could easily happen.

So, what might an equivalent deal look like with Iran? It is obvious what we and Israel would want—abandonment of their nuclear weapons program and a concomitant reduction of threat against the Jewish state. The Iranians might, like Syria, want to be welcomed back into the “family of nations” so that they could solve some of their economic problems and thereby calm their restive, secular, Western-oriented citizens. (Some estimate this could represent up to 40 percent of Iranians.)

In Iran, as elsewhere in the Middle East, the desire to be respected is one potent aspect of their agenda. Many savvy historians, journalists, and observers contend that Iran’s desire to develop atomic weapons has less to do with attacking Israel than an expression of national pride. I do not want to test this hypothesis on the ground; but if even partially true is could be one more clue that a deal is possible. It seems to make more sense than bombing them back to the Tenth Century.