A different point of view on talking to the bad guys

NY Times:

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... Ms. Rice remained publicly silent, sitting across town in the office that Mr. Baker gave up 14 years ago. She has yet to say anything about the public tutorial being conducted by the man who first knew her when she was a mid-level Soviet expert on the National Security Council. She has not responded to Mr. Baker’s argument, delivered in a tone that drips with isn’t-this-obvious, that America has to be willing to talk to its adversaries (a premise Ms. Rice has questioned if the conditions are not right), or his dismissal of the administration’s early argument that the way to peace in the Middle East was through quick, decisive victory in Baghdad.

Aides to the 52-year-old Ms. Rice say she is acutely aware that there is little percentage in getting into a public argument with Mr. Baker, the 76-year-old architect of the first Bush administration’s Middle East policy. But Thursday, as President Bush gently pushed back against some of Mr. Baker’s recommendations, Ms. Rice’s aides and allies were offering a private defense, saying that she already has a coherent, effective strategy for the region.

She has advocated “deepening the isolation of Syria,” because she believes much of the rest of the Arab world condemns its efforts to topple Lebanon’s government, they said; and in seeking to isolate Iran, they said, she hopes to capitalize on the fears of nations like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan that Iran seeks to dominate the region, with the option of wielding a nuclear weapon.

Ms. Rice makes no apology for the premium she has placed on promoting democracy in the Middle East, even though that is an idea that Mr. Baker and his commission conspicuously ignored in spelling out their recommendations. “I don’t think that the road to democracy in Iraq is at all utopian,” she said in April.

It is plenty utopian to Mr. Baker, who has made clear his view that the quest is entirely ill-suited to the realities of striking a political deal that may keep Sunnis and Shiites from killing each other, and that may extract American forces from Iraq.

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Rice seems to have a more realistic take on the situation in the Middle East. The Baker condescension is not convincing. In fact it seems down right unrealistic to coin a phrase.

The Iranians history of talks with the US over the last 28 years has never resulted in anything that could be said to be of benefit to the US. Most of the time it has been to our detriment. When you add to that the multilateral mind game on nukes that has acted as a gift of time to Iran's ambitions to build a bomb it is just difficult to impossible to make the case for engaging in more time wasters with Iran.

Syria has on occasion made small concessions in order to continue its roll as a sponsor of terrorism. The concessions that Baker is talking about giving this time are not the US's to give. He wants Israel to agree to give up somethings in return for an illusory promise of peace from people whose word is no good.

It all makes me glad that Rice is in charge of the State Department. It is also pretty clear that she is much closer to the President's position on negotiations with the bad guys. (You may have noticed that my characterization of Iran and Syria is not too diplomatic, but it is realistic.)