Dancing with the Devil: The Perils of Engaging Rogue Regimes
Michael Rubin
Language: English
Pages: 432
ISBN: 1594037973
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Engagement with rogue regimes is not cost-free, as Michael Rubin demonstrates by tracing the history of American diplomacy with North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya, the Taliban’s Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Further challenges to traditional diplomacy have come from terrorist groups, such as the PLO in the 1970s and 1980s, or Hamas and Hezbollah in the last two decades. The argument in favor of negotiation with terrorists is suffused with moral equivalence, the idea that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Rarely does the actual record of talking to terrorists come under serious examination.
While soldiers spend weeks developing lessons learned after every exercise, diplomats generally do not reflect on why their strategy toward rogues has failed, or consider whether their basic assumptions have been faulty. Rubin’s analysis finds that rogue regimes all have one thing in common: they pretend to be aggrieved in order to put Western diplomats on the defensive. Whether in Pyongyang, Tehran, or Islamabad, rogue leaders understand that the West rewards bluster with incentives and that the U.S. State Department too often values process more than results.
Relentless Strike: The Secret History of Joint Special Operations Command
A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism
Terrorism and the Ethics of War
Threat Finance: Disconnecting the Lifeline of Organised Crime and Terrorism
report on Soviet noncompliance found no violation resulting from the Soviet use of dismantled SS-7 missile sites to support the SS-25. The next report, however, determined the Soviets to be in violation of SALT I for the same activity.36 Soviet behavior challenged even the most dovish Americans’ determination to prove that treaties worked. In 1983, an American spy satellite detected a Soviet radar complex near Krasnoyarsk, in the middle of Siberia. Its configuration suggested a military purpose.
Tripoli 941. 86. James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, “Hoard of Cash Lets Qaddafi Extend Fight against Rebels,” New York Times, March 10, 2011. Chapter 5: Tea with the Taliban 1. U.S. Embassy Islamabad, “Meeting with the Taliban in Kandahar: More Questions than Answers,” February 15, 1995, Islamabad 01686. 2. U.S. Embassy Islamabad, “Finally, a Talkative Talib: Origins and Membership of the Religious Students’ Movement,” February 20, 1995, Islamabad 1792. 3. U.S. Embassy Islamabad, “A/S
29. Title VIII, P.L. 101-246, February 16, 1990. 30. Ross, The Missing Peace, p. 65. 31. Ibid., p. 82. 32. “Text of Arafat’s Remarks,” Associated Press, September 14, 1993. 33. The Middle East Peace Facilitation Act of 1993, P.L. 103-125, October 28, 1993. 34. Mark, “Palestinians and Middle East Peace: Issues for the United States.” 35. Ross, The Missing Peace, p. 123. 36. Ibid., p. 125. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid., p. 135. 39. Ibid., p. 190. 40. Foreign Operations, Export
spoke about a grand bargain floated by North Korean leaders in which the communist regime would remain inside the NPT and allow inspections in exchange for light-water reactors, diminished U.S. ties to South Korea, and a formal peace.87 Gallucci ignored the North Korean claim of nuclear weapons capability in order to advance the possibility of a deal. Clinton, however, was not yet ready to forget the cause of dispute. On November 7, he declared that “North Korea cannot be allowed to develop a
to rid Washington of Zionist influence, and Qadhafi’s press minister blamed the failure of dialogue on a lack of White House interest.5 There was no change during Ford’s administration, so Qadhafi celebrated Jimmy Carter’s election and hoped that the new president might send an ambassador.6 It was not an ambassador who would eventually come, however, but Carter’s younger brother Billy. The president distanced himself from his brother’s antics, while behind the scenes he defended Billy and denied
