Terror has no boundaries

The Belmont Club:

...

The kidnapping of fifteen British sailors by Iran has inadvertently given the public a glimpse of what it means to "negotiate" with the Ayatollahs. It is also an illustration of how safe it is to stay on "your" side of the border, such as for example within the sovereign territory of a United States embassy, or manning an outpost on the Israeli side of Lebanese border, sleeping in a housing unit in the Khobar towers, visiting a friendly Yemeni port, keeping a watch on smugglers in Iraqi waters while in a British naval vessel and -- in case anyone still remembers -- going to work in Manhattan on an autumn day.

One of the problems with assuming that a withdrawal from Iraq -- to Kurdistan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or as Congressman Murtha once suggested -- to Okinawa will end hostilities is it presumes a certain conventionality: that once you have "stopped" fighting by signing some agreement; or that by withdrawing past some map border you will be safe.

The campaign in Afghanistan clearly shows that maps mean nothing to terrorists. The al-Qaeda, driven from one "country" simply moved to the neighboring country. The only ones who respected international boundaries were the Americans. For al-Qaeda the "international" border means security for their side in Waziristan but it certainly provides no safety for Coalition forces in "Afghanistan" from their attacks, except as provided by the Coalition's own defenses. A purely legal border, like the Iran-Iraq demarcation in the Shatt-al-arab is a one way street. It's a geographical "Geneva Convention", entirely asymmetrical....
Yet, we continue the fools errand of trying to negotiate with people of bad faith, and Democrats seem to believe that we don't do it enough. Engagement in meaningless bad faith conversations seems to give them some comfort, but it is an illusory comfort. When their illusions are crushed as they were in the Carter administration the hunker down and get weaker. The British appear to be following their script.

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