How to talk to terrorists
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When it comes to terrorism, governments seem to suffer from a collective amnesia. All of our historical experience tells us that there can be no purely military solution to a political problem, and yet every time we confront a new terrorist group, we begin by insisting we will never talk to them. As Dick Cheney put it, “we don’t negotiate with evil; we defeat it”. In fact, history suggests we don’t usually defeat them and we nearly always end up talking to them. Hugh Gaitskell, the former Labour leader, captured it best when he said: “All terrorists, at the invitation of the government, end up with drinks in the Dorchester.”
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It is hard not to respond emotionally to a terrorist act in the heat of the moment. When we see videos of western journalists being beheaded or TV footage of small children being blown up by IRA bombs it seems obvious that the only answer is force. It is easy to regard any suggestion that we should ever talk to people capable of such savagery as immoral. George W Bush, in a speech to the Knesset in 2008, even suggested that talking to terrorists in this way amounted to appeasement. That is, however, to misunderstand appeasement. Chamberlain’s mistake in 1938 was not talking to Hitler – it was entirely sensible to take every possible step to avert another catastrophic world war – but to think Hitler could be bought off with a slice of Czechoslovakia. Talking to terrorists and agreeing with them are not the same thing. The British government negotiated with Sinn Féin, but we did not concede to their demand of a united Ireland at the barrel of a gun.
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We usually delay talking to armed groups too long, and as a result, a large number of people die unnecessarily. General David Petraeus admitted that, in Iraq, the US left it far too late to talk to those “with American blood on their hands”. We delay because it is argued that talking is too risky – but experience suggests the real risk lies in not talking.
When governments have been wrestling for years with a terrorist group, and it becomes clear that the military option is not working, the tendency is to try it again – what we might call the “one last heave” approach. In Afghanistan, this was the argument for another “surge” of troops, under Petraeus, to put the Taliban on the back foot. Unfortunately, this tactic rarely works. Terrorist groups may not accept that they are being outfought, and generally believe they can wait out the conventional forces arrayed against them.
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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/07/-sp-how-to-talk-to-terrorists-isis-al-qaida
Note: This is a long piece and I predict a lot (if this thread takes off) of "but ISIS is different" comments. Powell addresses that and many other issues. I suggest reading the whole piece.
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