Reply #3: We Have To Talk To Bad Guys [View All]

[ProSense]

We Have To Talk To Bad Guys

By John McLaughlin
Sunday, July 23, 2006; Page B07

Although the fighting in the Middle East is still raging, it is not too soon to start drawing lessons from these tragic events. Even if this situation begins to cool, there are so many other flashpoints in the Middle East and so many other potential hot spots in the world that any respite from crisis is bound to be short.

Lesson No. 1 is that change occurs incrementally and almost imperceptibly in the Middle East, but when it reaches critical mass, the potential for surprise and disaster is enormous...

Lesson No. 2 is that the chances of detecting and heading off imminent disaster are enhanced when there is intense, unrelenting and daily attention by a senior and respected U.S. figure who wakes up every morning worrying about nothing else -- the role that Ambassador Dennis Ross played so effectively in the 1990s...

Lesson No. 3, related to all of this, is that process matters, especially in the Middle East, where the issues are so contentious and the parties so divided...

Lesson No. 4 is that even superpowers have to talk to bad guys...

Lesson No. 5 is that there are no unilateral solutions to today's international problems, not even for superpowers...

In a region as complex as the Middle East, nothing guarantees progress. But what is clear is that these problems are intertwined, that all the states in the region have vital interests at stake, and that approaching these issues serially will only prolong the familiar cycle of one step forward and two steps back.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/21/AR2006072101399.html