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Talking to the Enemy

[Wall Street Journal] Bret Stephens - It is the declared policy of the Obama administration that the U.S. should talk to enemies as well as friends. So why not talk to al-Qaeda? It's not as if al-Qaeda isn't willing to deal. "Whether America escalates or de-escalates this conflict, we will reply in kind," Osama bin Laden said in 2002. Bin Laden renewed his offer in 2006, and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri made it again earlier this month. But aren't al-Qaeda's demands outrageous, and nonnegotiable to boot? Iran is bargaining over a nuclear program that it has no right to possess. In America, we prosecute extortion rackets. We don't recognize, as an unalterable fact, the rights of local mafias to hold neighborhoods hostage. We do so because we know that to do otherwise is to import the law of the jungle into civil society. The world at large is not America, and we can't bust every extortion racket in it (though we can bust a few). But neither are we obliged, by self-interest or self-respect, to be played by every extortionist who comes our way, seeking the prestige of our company and the things we have to offer in exchange for being kept safe from harm. This is why we know better than to talk to al-Qaeda. This is why we should know better than to talk to the Irans and North Koreas of the world.
2009-08-20 06:00:00
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