Is diplomacy the solution we have been waiting for?
Let’s answer this question by taking a brief look at how some countries have reacted to the news of President Obama and then analyzing how his philosophy has historically worked in another area ““ criminal justice.
A day after the U.N. Security Council unanimously condemned North Korea for testing long-range missiles, the country said last Tuesday that it would restart its nuclear program and end talks indefinitely with those who would seek to curtail its “sovereign” right to nuclear weapons.
Two weeks ago, a U.S. ship was attacked and an American man was taken hostage by a group of Somali pirates, marking the first time in 200 years that an American ship had been pirated.
Twenty-four hours after the man was rescued and the media celebrated Obama’s “no drama” handling of the crisis, the pirates shot at another U.S. ship, and this time with stronger weapons.
Last week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boasted that his country now controls all the steps for producing nuclear fuel, virtually confirming the West’s fears that Iran will produce a nuclear bomb.
These developments show that the world has grown more, not less, dangerous since word of Obama’s foreign policy has spread.
Foreign leaders have evidently not been moved by the president’s star power, or at least not enough to change their behavior. Many of these countries are closer than ever to getting nuclear firepower and yet, Obama still thinks that we would have more success talking to our enemies than keeping the pressure on them.
The president’s mentality about how to deal with “rogue nations” is simple enough to understand. In fact, people have been applying the same theory to criminal justice for decades.
Beginning in the 1960s, liberal judges invented a creative way to account for the steady increase in crime: They reasoned that the problem was not the criminals themselves, but society, whose mean-spiritedness they said was driving people to commit crime.
In keeping with this view that criminals are actually victims, corrections gradually became more focused on rehabilitation and therapy than actual punishment. These same romantic ideas are now part of our foreign policy.
We have all heard about President Obama’s vow to sit down with Iran’s leaders “unconditionally,” and this vow is no isolated promise.
In fact, Obama has already met with Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan dictator who famously called George W. Bush “the devil” and who is now effectively ruling by diktat by teargassing the opposition. Last Saturday, Obama was photographed shaking hands with Chavez and exchanging very diplomatic pats on the back with him.
Obama has also spoken recently about renewing talks with communist Cuba, talks his press secretary says will come even in the absence of concrete action on human rights and press freedom by that country.
Of course, this new spirit of relentless engagement could not be better for our enemies. Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea and everyone else who was treated coldly ““ but suitably ““ during the Bush administration are naturally ready and willing to be seated back at the table on equal terms. It gives them automatic credibility, a forum for their grievances and effectively pardons them of past sins as long as they agree to cooperate in the future.
But if our president thinks he can make law-abiding citizens out of lifelong tyrants, he should take a lesson from history. The theories that underlie this type of diplomacy have failed miserably in the past.
When the U.S. tried to reform criminals by treating them with therapy and making punishments less severe ““ versions of which we are trying to do with our foreign enemies ““ crime increased.
After all, doesn’t it make sense that criminals would become more violent after realizing that they would incur lesser punishments?
The same will undoubtedly be true of dictators.
Obama will try to rehabilitate them by doing hypnosis ““ I mean that facetiously ““ or who knows what kind of psychiatric treatment he has in mind ““ maybe it includes reading anti-American propaganda.
Any way he chooses, it’s a lost cause.
From a dictator’s perspective, hating America has become such a part of culture that it is virtually necessary for survival. We are fooling ourselves if we think they will miraculously change their opinions of us.
Before we go any further with this strategy, let’s take a cue from the Carter administration. The political atmosphere then was far more conducive to diplomacy than it is now, and things still ended terribly.
We are the world’s only remaining superpower, and the rest of the world is fragmented into a hodgepodge of weak or impractical states.
People are desperate to dethrone America. If diplomacy is ever an effective tool of persuasion, now is not the time to use it.
If you are fearful of diplomacy, e-mail Pherson at