By Brigitte L. Nacos
As she testified before the Senate Appropriation Committee
on Tuesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Senators that the United States will participate in multilateral
talks with officials of Iraq and neighboring countries, including Iran and Syria--up to now shunned by Washington diplomacy. While the State Department still makes a distinction between “discussions”
(yes) and negotiations (no), the sudden shift in favor of what the Iraq Study
Group and many administration critics recommended looks like the right
move. “Better late than never,"
said Leon E. Panetta according to the Washington
Post. The White House chief during the Clinton presidency and member of the Iraq Study Group mentioned the agreement with North Korea and Dr. Rice’s recent involvement in efforts to revive the Israeli-Palestinian
road map toward peace as proof that, as Panetta told Glenn Kessler of the Post,
"the administration is finally recognizing that part of its arsenal is
strong diplomacy."
Let’s hope that the agreement to participate in a regional
conference on Iraq signals a real change in the Bush administration’s approach
to international relations rather than a mere public relations move to silence
critics. Or, as Steven C. Clemons of the Washington Note
writes, “Time will tell whether this is
meaningless flirtation -- or whether this is a carefully crafted
"confidence building measure" that could lead to more meaningful
engagement between the US and Iran over outstanding issues -- and between the
US and Syria.”
The stakes are too high for mere flirtations or publicity
stunts at a time when hardball threat tactics and real or threatened sanctions did
not work.
In today’s Washington Post, columnist David Ignatius writes,
Everybody knows that economic sanctions don't work. Just look at the decades of fruitless pressure on Cuba. But guess what? In the recent cases of North Korea and Iran, a new variety of U.S.Treasury sanctions is having a potent effect, suggesting that the conventional wisdom may be wrong.
I am not convinced. What we need are serious diplomatic efforts. Let’s hope that’s what the administration has in mind.
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