The Gentle Art of Negotiating With Terrorists

By Daniel Greenfield @ Sultan Knish Blog

 

 

The first rule of negotiating with Islamic terrorists is don’t. The second rule is if you do it, do it with heavy artillery.

Islamic terrorists don’t negotiate. They make demands in hopes of securing concessions without actually giving up anything. Only the most dedicated historian could find an example of a negotiation process during which the Islamic terrorists made an actual concession, followed through on it and did not later take it back or turn right around and go back to terrorism.

The most prominent counterexamples are the three decades of negotiations between Israel and Islamic terrorist groups which initially won a round of Nobel Prizes and then degenerated into an endless war during which the terrorists took back every concession they ever made, did not follow through on any of them and used Israeli concessions to become a much worse threat.

Negotiating with the Taliban, Hezbollah, and Iran all had the same end result.

Offering to negotiate with Islamic terrorists is a statement of weakness. Jihadists only offer to negotiate out of fear, weakness or to entrap us and they assume we do the same thing. Nothing would ever convince them that we genuinely want to live in peace with them or that we prefer alternatives to violence. So any time we offer to negotiate, they see is as weakness or a trick.

If our diplomats ever understood this cultural reality, they would stop being baffled when the negotiations fall apart. And after generations of the same thing, they refuse to learn.

Terrorists start negotiations with maximalist demands to probe for weakness and then switch between false promises and threats. If any of our diplomats had bought a rug at a good price in the Middle East or a used car at a good price in Chicago, they would respond by walking out. Instead, they try to find a way to meet their demands. And then the terrorists have them.

The terrorists become the ones to walk out. They throw Bobby Fischer style tantrums over every minor detail. They invent a constant stream of new grievances to be outraged by. What are typical tactics for small children, sociopaths and Egyptian merchants utterly baffle our best and brightest who can’t figure out how to cope with opponents who don’t play by UN rules.

Now the terrorists start extracting concessions in exchange for taking part in the negotiations. The process becomes a substitute for the outcome. Peace, an end to violence and the survival of the hostages hinge not on the defeat of the terrorists, but our ability to win them over.

Instead of negotiating the terms of a peace agreement, the negotiations themselves become the subject of negotiations and civilized nations begin bribing the terrorists to stay and talk. Iran got billions in sanctions relief and the PLO got to spring terrorists from prison. The Biden administration pushed Israel to give Hamas a ceasefire as a prelude to negotiating the release of hostages. The Israeli government wisely refused to fall for the same trick yet again.

And then the negotiations blew up anyway because the terrorists had killed their ‘hostage’.

Islamic terrorists, from Iran to the PLO, from Hamas to Qatar, take the negotiating process itself hostage and warn that they will blow it up unless their demands are met. Hopeful peace negotiators who allow the terrorists to hold the process hostage become their useful idiots. From the Oslo accords to the Iran deal to the Hamas hostage negotiations, it ends the same way.

The only way to negotiate with terrorists is through strength. Not just a position of physical strength, because terrorists know how to turn a strength into a weakness, but through strength in negotiations. In Islam, posture is reality and reality is malleable. If you are going to negotiate with terrorists, it’s more important to have a strong posture than the world’s strongest military.

A mighty war machine is an asset, but posture is a willingness to actually use it. That’s why the Carter, Clinton and Biden administrations became international laughingstocks. It’s why the Bush administration, after initially terrifying the Muslim world, came to be seen as a foolish foe.

Western liberals believe that peace will be achieved when all the wars end, but peace in the Muslim world is not a permanent state but a temporary truce in an endless war. Liberals tell us that the problem is a lack of understanding, but the lack of understanding is coming from them.

Liberals are obsessed with understanding the other side, but rather than understanding it, they adopt its grievances as their own, label them as anti-colonialism or some other leftist buzzword, and then take on the job of scourging their own country over the enemy’s grievances. After generations of this indoctrination, some at academic institutions funded by Muslim monarchs, most of our diplomats have internalized enemy propaganda as factual history and moral reality.

This makes the average State Department girl or Foreign Service lad as able to negotiate with Islamic terrorists as Vidkun Quisling was at negotiating Norway’s independence with the Nazis.

Obama told the nuke deal negotiators that Iran had good reason to fear us because of our support for the Shah and that it was their job to relieve the fears of the ayatollahs. Such kindly understanding permeates our diplomats who spend a lot of time ‘understanding’ the enemy’s position through the rants of western radicals like Noam Chomsky and John Mearsheimer.

The State Department doesn’t understand our national security. It doesn’t understand the fears of non-Muslims and Muslim governments worried about Islamic terrorists. But it’s entirely up to date on whatever orientalist nonsense Marxists use to prop up the third world terrorists they hope will bring western civilization crashing down after the Bolsheviks proved unfit for the job.

But booting every Georgetown grad who has read Chomsky doesn’t fix the problems of applying a process meant for civilized countries trying to reach an amicable solution to terrorists who see negotiations as a means of gaining an advantage before their next attack. The international community, flawed as it is, maintains a level of trust that makes agreements possible.

There is no trust to be had within the Islamic ummah where all agreements are temporary, everything is subject to revision based on force and trickery, and all oaths are fatally false. Muslim factions cannot trust each other beyond the mutual interests of the moment. Even when bound by kinship and a common religion, they turn on each other in the blink of an eye.

We cannot even count on that much. Without family ties and religious bonds, there is no moral or personal obligation we can expect them to have toward us. Not just their inclinations, but honor and religion demand that they lie to us, cheat us and harm us whenever they can.

That’s why the first rule of negotiating with Islamic terrorists is don’t. It achieves nothing, The only point of such negotiations is to state firmly and clearly what our intentions are. That is why they are also best conducted with heavy artillery. Terrorists will not end their attacks in response to concessions or negotiations. They will temporarily end them in response to successful attacks or permanently in response to their total destruction. That is how you negotiate with terrorists.

The gentle art of negotiating with terrorists demands that we know who they are and who we are. As Sun Tzu observed, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” We have been losing the war on terror because we do not know the enemy.

But worse still, we have forgotten who we are. And unless we remember, we will lose.

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine. Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation. Thank you for reading.

A Deal with Islamic Terrorists is Always a Mistake

When you think of terrorists in diplomatic, not military terms, you can’t win.  

By Daniel Greenfield • November 22, 2023

The reports of a deal with Hamas brokered by its state sponsors in Qatar are a disaster and a disgrace. But such a deal was tragically inevitable.  A deal with Islamic terrorists is always a mistake. One of the reasons it’s a mistake is because the real terms of any deal give the terrorists control over your decision-making process. That is their goal.  Israel has suffered 30+ years of escalating terror because it made a deal with Arafat. Oct 7 happened because Israel made deals for quiet with Hamas.

When you think of terrorists in diplomatic, not military terms, you can’t win.............To Read More...

 My Take - I've stated this over and over again.  There's only one thing Islamists respect. Power, and the willingness to use it.  Anything less is viewed as weakness and invites attack.  

The real historical moral foundation of Islam is greed, hate, envy, jealousy, lust, and violence.  That's history, and that history is incontestable.

Which makes you wonder if the bugman knows that, how is it all these highly educated diplomats, politicians, and intentional experts don't?  Easy.  Ideology makes smart people stupid, and after years of being contaminated with the fallacious history and corrupt education inculcated by academia into their brains, stupid is the rule, not the exception.  And Henry Kissinger is the perfect example.  

Texas: Muslim on Terror Watch List Murders SWAT Cop and Two Hostages, Had Bomb-Making Materials - Robert Spencer November 22, 2023 -   If a Muslim in Texas had been able to carry out his plans, there could have been dozens, even hundreds killed. He was stopped, but others will keep trying.  Ahmed Mohamed Nassar, 35, a resident of South Austin, was on the terror watch list, but the feds clearly weren’t watching. They were too busy hunting for Jan. 6 “insurrectionists” and “white supremacists.” CBS Austin reported that on Saturday, “the incident began at 2:49 a.m. with a 911 call from a stabbing victim.” Police arrived within about ten minutes, and discovered that two others had been hurt as well. They were inside the house with Nassar..........

My Take - If there ever was a deal that demonstrates just how right Daniel is, this is it, and it's blatantly stupid!!!!! 

BREAKING: Israel, Hamas Strike a Hostage Deal -- Here are the Details - Katie Pavlich  |  November 21, 2023 - After more than eight hours of deliberations, the Israeli government officially agreed to a ceasefire with Hamas Tuesday night in exchange for 50 hostages who were kidnapped by the terrorist organization and taken to the Gaza Strip on October 7. The rest of the 186 hostages held by Hamas and other Islamic terrorist groups will not be released. The public now has the option to appeal the government decision to the Israeli Supreme Court. Ten Americans are among the hostages. It is unclear if they will be released in this deal.  

A Questionable Deal - November 21, 2023 — John Hinderaker An agreement between Israel and the government of Gaza for a partial hostage release apparently is about to be finalized. The details are not yet clear, but it looks something like this: Various reports of the deal have indicated that somewhere between 50 and 100 Israeli and foreign hostages would be released, in exchange for a five-day break in fighting and the release of somewhere between 150 and 300 Palestinian »

 

Economics and the Russo/Ukrainian War

By Rich Kozlovich Tags:  P&D Geopolitics Edition: Russo/Ukrainian War, and Donald Trump

All geopolitics are predicated on geographics, demographics and economics.  Let's talk economics and this Russo/Ukrainian War.  

President Zelenskyy (and yes, that's the correct spelling) says the Russo/Ukrainian War won't end until God punishes Russia and all former Ukrainian territory is restored to Ukraine.   That's pretty bold talk for a guy that doesn't have ten cents in his pocket that's his, and Joe Biden says America will support Ukraine "as long as it takes".  

More blather from a former actor who has no trouble spending billions of America dollars, and demanding more to attain his goals, and another stupid piece of blather from what has to be the dumbest man to ever sit in the White House.   Carter, both the Bush's, and Obama can fight over who belongs in second place. 

Let's stop being stupid.  This Russo/Ukrainian War is going to have be settled via negotiations or eventually Ukraine will most likely lose, because the rest of the world will tire of the cost and consequences of supporting Ukraine.  But can Russia afford to continue this insanity for a few more years?

I'll tell you what, we'll come back to that.

While all that may take years, if a conservative gets into office in 2024, this "as long as it takes" support may end on January 20th 2025, which I think Putin is hoping for. 

But I also think a new administration just can't walk away, and Putin needs to know it, and all parties need to make sure there's one absolute crystal clear truth.  This must end!   And it must end through a settlement where everyone will have to win and everyone will have to lose.  While there's talk China will offer a plan, I think that's like asking the Pharisees and the Sadducees if they thought Christ was a heretic.  So, it seems to me no one has a plan to put forth, so, I guess it's up to me.  Imagine that.

In my opinion, I think this is the only settlement, or one very similar, that can work, and it must start with a cease fire.

• Eastern Ukraine was overall pro-Russian from the beginning, so they will agree some part of Eastern Ukraine, already conquered, will officially become part of Russia.  The borders can be negotiated. 
• Russian will officially agree to respect those borders and the borders of all their independent neighbors, even those not members of NATO.  (I don't give much hope Russia will honor any agreement where there's no consequences for bad behavior.)
• All sanctions will be removed! 
• Ukraine, and Moldova will become part of NATO if they wish, and NATO will "officially" agree to not move any further East.  (Belarus has been playing footsie with Russia over this, so let them live with it.)
• Russia will recompense Ukraine one trillion dollars to rebuild the cites and infrastructure they’ve destroyed, which has been estimated to cost between 300 and 400 billion dollars.
  
• 400 billion going directly to the Ukraine government.
• 600 billion going to dedicated Retirement and Health Care funds.
• Russia will offer Western Europe natural gas at a reduced negotiated guaranteed rate, for five years.  All energy sales to Europe will have a negotiated deductible percentage going to Ukraine as the source for the trillion dollar settlement.  That amount will be deducted by the purchasers and will be delivered, per-ratio, to the Ukraine government and the Health and Retirement funds. That deduction will end with the settlement of the trillion dollars, but that settlement must be fulfilled within ten years.
  
• Russia will give Kaliningrad back to Poland, and Poland will allot a payment agreed upon with Russia, through mandatory binding arbitration if necessary, and that money will go to Ukraine as part of the trillion dollar settlement divided according to the agreement. 

There are those who might think this is too easy on Russia, and those who will think this is too harsh, but the fact is Russia will be able to walk away without being totally humiliated, completely bankrupted, and the cost for reparations would not come directly out of their coffers.  In 2022 the E.U. paid Russia 16 billion dollars for energy (over six trillion rubles) and that was with sanctions.  That number will grow rapidly after sanctions are lifted. 

A dollar is worth a little over 75 rubles. A trillion U.S. dollars would translate as 76,015,000,000,000 rubles.  That’s 76 trillion rubles!  Russia doesn’t have that kind of money, and please keep this in mind.  Russia is not a natural capital generating nation, and neither are Iran and China, big Russian allies, who are benefiting from all this at Russia's expense.  

We'll come back to that also.

Personally, I don't care what happens to Russia, as Russia has been a vile, murderous insane nation for over a hundred years, slaughtering tens of millions of innocent people and funding violence all over the world.  The entire history of Russia for the last hundred years has been a history so vile as to make any sane person sick to their stomach.   But demanding perfection is always a mistake.  

The best we can hope for is the most acceptable imperfection, so the cost of reparations must be negotiable, otherwise it could trigger a bigger problem as did the reparations inflicted on Germany by the Versailles treaty at the end of WWI.   But that number still must big enough to stop a lot of Russia's militarization and trouble making around the world.  And Russia would agree to that why? 

We'll come back to that.  

There will be those who think Ukraine should have more, but the fact is, Ukrainian corruption brought this into being.  They brought this on themselves by lining their pockets instead of arming the nation.  That along with the stupid energy policies of European nations, the E.U., and Biden's insane energy policies, all predicated on the falsehood of catastrophic climate change, formerly global warming.  But since the CO2 emissions have been going up and the world's temperate hasn't, it's now climate change.   That sent the price of energy skyrocketed,  and that funded Putin's invasion.

Personally, I don't care what happens to Ukraine or for that matter Europe, we don't need them, they need us, yet they've been arrogant and stupid, looking down their noses at America forever.  In spite of the fact they're not all speaking German because of America, and now they're suffering the consequences for their "green" insanity, and Germany is the lead actor in that insanity. 

For over 100 years America has spilled untold gallons of American blood and wasted untold billions of American dollars to save Europe, and we need to stop it.  We're giving security and money to people who don't even like us, and would happily turn on us.   As Senator Kennedy asks:

Why are we giving money to countries that hate America? They should be able to hate us for free.

Up to this point there are only two major winners.  Some minor winners, and some lesser winners.   They major winners are China, and to a smaller degree, India.  Those at an even lesser degree are the former Soviet Republics bordering Russia and China, and Iran.  Out of all of them, only India is a legitimate capital generator, because they've abandoned central planning to a large degree.  Now they're building their own air craft carriers and have decided to create their own military industrial complex manufacturing their military equipment in country.  Russia has been their primary supplier for many years, mostly to be able to defend against China. but that's going to change, and soon, and they won't need Russia except for energy supplies, which they can acquire from the Middle East. 

China is getting a huge discount on the energy they're buying from Russia, and Iran is selling arms to Russia, and both are finding ways around American sanctions in the process.  China is now saying they're going to sell military equipment to Russia. I have as little confidence in their equipment as I do Russian equipment, and they're still worried about more American sanctions.  I think trade with communist China was a door that should have never been opened in the first place, and a door that needs to be closed, permanently, since trade with America has been funding their militarization, and international trouble making.

The former Soviet Republics are now far less dependent on Russia economically, much less intimidated militarily, and are creating their own economic trade deals less concerned whether or not Russia likes it.  Much of it with China.  

Now, that brings us back to all that stuff I said we'd come back to, and all of its about economics.  Russian economics.  Russia needs out.

One of the benefits Russia had was they had little debt, that's changing as they're going to be operating at a deficit, and the regional budgets are suffering.  Industry is suffering due to sanctions, local shops and businesses are closing or operating at less than former capacity, as Putin shifts the burden of all this to Russian society. 

Spending on the military and on security services will grow from 24 percent of budget spending projected for 2022 to almost 33 percent in 2023 (9.5 trillion rubles). Spending on the economy will decrease compared to that in 2022, and the small increase in social spending will be eaten up by inflation.

The cost of Putin's imperial ambitions are expanding way beyond anything they expected, or can afford.  He's tapping their National Welfare Fund, which had been growing, and among other things pays retirement benefits, but if this continues:

The main way to finance the budget deficit is now domestic borrowing. After all, if the MinFin continues to use the liquid part of the NWF (7.6 trillion rubles) to finance the deficit, that source is likely to be exhausted in three to four years. 

Russia's annual budget is between 300 and 400 billion dollars, and Putin spent a quarter of that on this war. He doesn't have the demographics or industry to fight this war so he's recruiting from other nations like Syria and Iran, and this puts all these "allies" in a position to demand funds from Putin he can't afford.  This war is costing Russia ten billion dollars a month, and that bill is getting harder to pay, and it's going to go up.

Putin does have foreign exchange reserves of "nearly $549 billion. About half of that total has been frozen by foreign countries friendly to Ukraine", but Russia may use the rest to "continue fueling its military offensive".   Again,  this war is costing Russia ten billion dollars a month, they're facing dropping revenue, deficit spending, welfare and retirement needs, demographic losses as peoples are fleeing Russia in droves, and Putin has to see the disastrous long term consequences of all that.   

Here's the bottom line.  Putin needs out, Ukraine must abandon any hope of continuing this war, and the rest of us want them to go away quietly into the night, and more and more prominent political figures in America are now as opposed to all this as I was from the beginning.   This whole mess isn't our fault, and it isn't our responsibility.   It is a great distraction though.

In the end, no matter what happens, Russia will now be a second rate thug that will be taken advantage of by China, India, and just about everyone else.  And I think its a very good possibility Putin will be found dead somewhere having "committed suicide".  Historically, failure isn't appreciated, approved of, or tolerated in the Russian hierarchy, especially failure from an ex-KGB thug who thinks he's a Czar.