Lack of dialogue hurts diplomacy

[struggle4progress]

AP , WASHINGTON
Sunday, Jul 30, 2006,Page 7

Advertising There is an old saying in diplomatic circles: You don't make peace with your friends, you make peace with your enemies ...

Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was one of those helping to shape a far different US foreign policy as national security assistant for president Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s, responded tartly when asked to appraise the Bush administration.

" Bush and Rice are pursuing a remarkably successful policy of self-ostracism," he said. "Unfortunately it is a disaster for the United States" ...

A former career US diplomat in the Middle East, Edward S. Walker, said .... "The tragedy of this administration is it doesn't know how to use diplomacy. It seems to be actually clueless" ...

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2006/07/30/2003321061

[Norquist Nemesis]

1. The tragedy isn't that it doesn't "know". It's that it refuses

to use diplomacy. It is a 'My way or I'll Cheney you.'

[struggle4progress]

2. The reality is probably an messy mix: an ignorant President,

a small but ideologically rigid hardcore of wingnut supporters, a collection of authoritarian theorists serving a self-satisfied class of economic elitists, all surrounded by a corrupt cloud of opportunists.

Embedded in this pudding are also a certain number of moderate conservatives who were happy their party came to power but who may be scientific realists and may actually be people of goodwill who are increasingly horrified by the situation.

The game is to construct a new consensus ...