Diplomacy is not appeasement
By Brendan Loy
Since I keep referencing it, but I haven't actually stated my position on it, I figured I should probably weigh in on yesterday's controversial statement by President Bush at the Israeli Knesset:
Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.
Now, let me begin by pointing out that I myself have made the "appeasement" argument before. Specifically, in response to posters that were plastered around USC's campus in the immediate wake of 9/11 by anti-war activists (against the Afghanistan war, mind you), which stated "WAR IS ALSO TERRORISM," I made some rebuttal signs that stated, "APPEASEMENT IS ALSO SURRENDER." When I chose those words, I was responding to the then-common far-left credo that our reaction to 9/11 should involve withdrawing from the Middle East, closing our bases in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, etc. -- in other words, making specific, substantive concessions to Al Qaeda's demands.
Similarly, in 2005, I wrote on the blog that we should not withdraw from Iraq simply because the terrorists want us to:
The Islamist radicals don’t just want us out of their backyards — they want to take over ours. Just like we were foolish to ignore Hitler’s long-term goals for “Greater Germany” and pretend that he would be satisfied with a few incremental concessions here and there, we are foolish to ignore the Islamists’ long-term goal of a worldwide Islamic state.
Withdrawing from Iraq for fear of further attacks would not stop them — it would not even slow them down. On the contrary, it would encourage them, because it would show them that they can convince us to change our policies by terrorizing us. It would give them reason to hope that, with a few more attacks and a few more surrenders, maybe they really will be able to see the Islamic flag flying over the whole world. We must not feed that fantasy.
That’s not to say the Iraq war is necessarily justified — that’s a separate debate, but the debate must be conducted on our terms, not theirs. Whatever else might be said about Iraq, the terrorists’ ire is NOT a valid reason to consider withdrawing. Appeasement is not the answer.
Again, in raising the specter of "appeasement" and World War II, I was addressing a specific substantive concession that I believed we should not make, at least not for the reason stated. Now, you can argue the merits of my point, but it is at least within the realm of rationality to claim that such an action would indeed be "appeasement."
President Bush's comment, by contrast, is not within the realm of rationality. He is claiming that the mere act of sitting down and negotiating with an enemy is tantamount to "appeasement." That is absolutely absurd. Bush needs to look up a dictionary definition of the damn word he's talking about. American Heritage defines "appeasement" as "the policy of granting concessions to potential enemies to maintain peace." Concessions. Not negotiations. In no version of reality is the mere act of negotiating "appeasement."
Now, it's perfectly fair to debate whether Obama's stated willingness to meet with Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without preconditions is a good idea. I'm not at all sure it is, and my uncertainty on that point is one reason (among many) that I'm undecided between Obama and McCain. The mere act of engaging in negotiations does have certain potential negative consequences, particularly when you're the world's unipolar power -- it tends to bestow a certain veneer of legitimacy to the other side, it can be a propaganda coup, etc. These factors need to be considered, and weighed against the potential positive consequences. That is an important debate to have.
But regardless of where you come down in that debate, calling the simple act of negotiating "appeasement" is clearly incorrect. It's not "appeasement" unless you concede something. Period.
If you want to argue that merely negotiating with one's enemies is itself inherently a "concession," then what do you make of the many times throughout our history that U.S. presidents, Republican and Democrat alike, have met with our enemies, sometimes with great success? Remember "only Nixon can go to China"? How about Reagan's meetings with Gorbachev, which helped end the Cold War? (Hat tip: David K.) Were those revered Republican presidents "appeasing" China and Russia, merely by meeting with them? Or does the substance of the negotiations determine whether they engaged in "appeasement"?
The answer is head-smackingly obvious, to the point that anyone who responds incorrectly is either an idiot or a liar. It is substantive concessions that matter. Thus, for instance, it is fair to argue -- not necessarily correct, but plausibly arguable -- that President Clinton "appeased" North Korea by essentially paying them off to halt (or pretend to halt) their nuclear ambitions. It is not, however, fair to argue that a President Obama would inherently be "appeasing" them merely by re-opening direct talks. You can't make any kind of judgment on the issue of "appeasement" without getting into the substance of the potential talks.
The last time I checked, neither Barack Obama nor any other major Democratic figure is promising any specific substantive concessions to Iran, nor to any other "terrorists [or] radicals." Bush himself actually acknowledged this point, unintentionally no doubt, when he mockingly described the Dems' position as a belief that "some ingenious argument will persuade [the terrorists and radicals] they have been wrong all along." If that were really the Dems' goal, as Bush asserts, then it would be foolish and naive, but it would not be "appeasement." Even if we credit Bush's own straw-man version of the Democrats' position, he's still wrong. Trying to convince someone they're wrong is not the same thing as "appeasing" them!
Of course, in reality, the goals of diplomacy are varied and complex, and again, we can and should debate what those goals should be, whether direct negotiation is worth the costs, etc. But dismissing the whole project as, by its very nature, "appeasement," is simply a lie.
Nor is this just some minor semantic debate. The word "appeasement" has a very specific and loaded historical meaning in geopolitical discourse, as Bush knows perfectly well. He made this explicit with his reference to Hitler, but he didn't need to. Everybody knows, when you're talking about "appeasement," that you're referring to Neville Chamberlain and his decision to give Hitler the Sudetenland, in hopes of achieving "peace in our time." That foolish action was, of course, a textbook case of "granting concessions to potential enemies to maintain peace." That was appeasement.
But the mere fact that Chamberlain talked to Hitler wasn't "appeasement"! What made it "appeasement" is what he did at those talks: he made a concession that he shouldn't have made. Bush has offered no evidence, nor even an argument, that the Democrats would follow the same course as Chamberlain in that regard. He therefore has no business invoking Chamberlain and Hitler to make his point.
What's really sad about this whole kerfuffle is that, as I said, there is actually a very serious and important issue that underlies all this bulls**t and malarkey. But now that's all become obscured by Bush's despicable rhetoric and the Democrats' justifiably angry rebuttals. Basically, what's now happening to our political discourse on the important issue of how we should approach diplomacy with our enemies is precisely what happens on the Internet whenever somebody breaks Godwin's Law and inappropriately invokes Hitler. Our president yesterday became a glorified message-board troll.
One other point: I don't personally get too riled up about the whole "politics stops at the water's edge" thing. I'm not saying it isn't a good principle, necessarily, but it's just not something that personally makes my blood boil. However, it is something that Republicans and conservatives tend to get very worked up over. God forbid a liberal public figure should ever say anything critical of our foreign policy overseas! Any time they do so, even arguably, the right wing predictably erupts in a paroxysm of rage. For heaven's sake, Natalie Manies of the Dixie Chicks was pilloried for the fact that she dared speak ill of President Bush in England, and she's a freakin' singer. And I know there are examples of even more righteous outrage when it's an actual Democratic politician who does this, though I can't remember details off hand. The point is, this is very much a sore spot on the Right.
So, against that backdrop, it is totally hypocritical for anyone who has ever invoked the "politics stops at the water's edge" principle to in any way condone Bush's remarks yesterday. He went before the legislature of a foreign nation and, acting in his capacity as head of state, made a clearly political argument designed to attack the other party and its presumptive nominee. (And don't even start with the "he wasn't referring to Obama" nonsense, or the "Obama doth protest too much" absurdity. Just don't. That's beyond Hillaryesque in its disregard for the truth. Of course he was talking about Obama, you nitwits. And acknowledging that obvious fact in no way acknowledges the truth of the criticism. Go back to third grade art class and rejoin the discussion when you have something meaningful to contribute.) As such, he has specifically validated the practice of taking our internal political debates overseas, in the most ostentatious way imaginable. If you're okay with that, fine. But don't you dare ever criticize any Democrat or liberal ever again for doing the same thing in reverse.
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