Maybe someone out there speaks the
Gibberish language, and can figure out what is communicated by a piece of
writing that sounds to ordinary mortals like a mishmash of contradictory assertions.
The piece came under the title: “Why
making deals with despots is difficult,” and the subtitle: “Fanatical
ideologues tend not to be 'win-win' kind of guys.” It was written by Clifford
D. May, and published on September 24, 2019 in The Washington Times.
You look at the title, and see that it
promises to explain why it is difficult to make deals with despots. You then
look at the subtitle, and see that it gives a hint as to what the argument will
sound like. It is that fanatical ideologues tend not to be win-win kind of
guys, says Clifford May. This assertion suggests that the fanatics are of the
all-or-nothing kind of guys who do not speak the language of negotiation or
compromise.
So now, you wonder who these people might
be. And you discover that Clifford May is pointing the finger at the usual
suspects. They are Bashar Assad of Syria, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran,
and Kim Jong-un of North Korea. You go over what the writer is saying about
them that might explain why he considers them to be fanatical ideologues, but
he disappoints you by the dearth of information he gives out on them.
You are disappointed because all that
Clifford May does, is accuse the three foreign leaders of wanting to negotiate
an all-or-nothing proposition, or they'll stay away from the negotiating table.
Aside from that, you see no effort exerted by the writer to explain what makes
those three gentlemen the fanatical ideologues, he says they are.
But then, as if by chance, you bump into
the following passage, and it is like a sudden tornado lifted you up and turned
you upside down:
“Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt
held fast against those who argued for a diplomatic solution with Nazi Germany.
They insisted on unconditional surrender. And President Reagan said: We win,
they lose. Today, Americans and Europeans believe that the distinction between
winning and losing should be hazy; that detente is a good-enough goal; that all
the children should take home a trophy”.
This sounds like if there were three fanatical
ideologues, satisfying Clifford May's definition, they must have been Winston
Churchill of Britain as well as Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan of the
United States –– not Bashar Assad, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini or Kim Jong-un
as per Clifford May’s earlier claims. This being an upside-down logic that
contradicts his assertions, you wonder what else is upside down and
contradictory in his article.
You go over the article one more time, and
discover that Clifford May is complaining about three agreements negotiated
between America and foreign governments. He repudiated them, not because they
were negotiated on the basis of an all-or-nothing proposition, which he said
would irk him, but because they were forged on the basis of meticulous bargaining
that took years to negotiate, which he said he would favor. So, here is how he
repudiated the three agreements:
“The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA) that Obama concluded with the Islamic Republic of Iran provided that
country with hundreds of billions of dollars in exchange for a promise to
slow-walk or terminate their nuclear weapons program. That deal was modeled on
the 1994 Agreed Framework under which President Clinton gave North Korea aid in
exchange for a promise to cease or delay its nuclear weapons program. And there
was the 2013 Framework for Elimination of Syrian Chemical Weapons, a deal that
was intended to ensure that Bashar Assad surrendered his chemical weapons
stockpiles”.
You reason that however messy the article
has proven to be, Clifford May must have written it to convey a message. That
message did not come out clearly throughout the piece, but you figure that
maybe the conclusion at the end of the article will shed light on what the
writer was trying to communicate. So, you look at the end of the article, and
see the following:
“It would be nice if we could convince
Khamenei, Jong-un, the Taliban, Putin and Jinping to the liberal, rules-based
order, and prefer commerce over conquest. Can we help them see what we see ––
that peace and prosperity are the only sensible objectives? Until Western
negotiators come to terms with this reality and adjust their policies and
negotiating strategies accordingly, the chances of achieving good deals are
none”.
And you give up. You give up because for a
guy –– whose country of America tramples on the rule of law and drops out of
international treaties left and right –– to write words like these, is akin to
the son of Vito Corleone (to use his own analogy) complaining that everybody is
refusing the hard-to-refuse offers that his father is making to them.
Also, for a guy whose other country of
Israel murders the Palestinian people it loots day and night –– to write words
like these, is akin to the godson of Vito Corleone complaining that everybody
thinks of him as being a thieving member of an organized crime syndicate.