Sometimes words and agreements aren’t enough, and parties need to stand up for their demands

One of the oft-repeated arguments against the American decision to use kinetic force against the Iranian regime was that negotiations on ending Iran’s nuclear aspirations were ongoing. Micah Sifry, whom I generally agree with, made this argument, quoting Omani foreign minister Badr bin Hamad Albusaidi’s statement on Face the Nation that Iran had agreed to “never, ever have … nuclear material that will create a bomb and to dilute their enriched uranium into ordinary nuclear fuel.”

Perhaps. It is entirely possible that the regime was investing in its offensive military capacity as a means of upping the ante and getting more out of the US and Europe in the negotiations. But I doubt it, as should any person clear eyed about the murderous regime and its priorities. Let’s remember that in the past year alone the Islamic Republic funneled over a billion US dollars to Hezbollah to rebuild its armed forces, and billions more into military proxies from Yemen through Burkina Faso, instead of investing in civil infrastructure when its most populated city was running out of water.

But that’s not the point of this article, because I and most readers will never know Iran’s true intentions and capabilities.

Instead, I’d like to explore a question I haven’t seen addressed in the many, many articles I’ve read decrying this war: what should a well-intentioned party do when negotiations fail? Because they did fail. Iran did not, in the many years of discussions in conference rooms in Oman and Geneva, in the many months since the 12 day war, come to the table and offer a peaceful resolution to its conflict with either the United States or Israel, a war it declared in 1979 and has been regularly prosecuting since through direct and indirect military attacks.

I think this is a critically important question, because the negotiations with Iran aren’t the only high stakes negotiations ongoing at the moment.  Years of negotiations with Russia, which has killed and murdered and destroyed while claiming it just wants to talk, have amounted to nothing. Years of free trade and open dialogue with China has not dissuaded it from upgrading its armed forces and openly stating its intention to conquer Taiwan and subject its 23 million inhabitants to the same repressive regime it maintains with brutality over a billion humans of the different nations it settled and colonized. In all of these cases, Open Societies have sought to come to terms through negotiations, incentives, trade agreements. In each of these situations, the authoritarian regime continued its aggression while shamelessly funding attacks on the democracies with which it negotiated.

Negotiations didn’t save lives in Syria, Sudan, or Sri Lanka. Neither did international law or international institutions. Negotiations didn’t convince Putin to return Crimea, Xi to lay off the Uyghurs, or Khamenei to stop financing regular attacks on Jewish community centers around the world. No UN Security Council resolution ended their campaigns. On the other hand, former US President Barack Obama’s failure to put his mettle where his mouth was when it came to his 2012 red line on Syria cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Biden, Netanyahu, and Trump’s failure to sufficiently arm Ukraine has strengthened Russian resolve. Each round of negotiations the Europeans and Americans engage in with Russia over the current war on Ukraine costs thousands of lives and many billions of dollars that could rehabilitate the war-torn country.

To make the point sharper: diplomacy doesn’t always work. That’s why Carl von Clausewitz called war “diplomacy by other means”: sometimes, one’s adversary is dead set on taking actions that no amount of negotiations will stop. Sometimes, one’s adversary needs to believe there are sticks to avoid, not only carrots on offer. Sometimes, the right negotiating tactic is to bomb military sites, eradicate launch capabilities, and eliminate the leadership of an organization hellbent on destroying your country.

Those of us who care about liberal democracy and want to keep Open Societies open should remember that we didn’t win our freedom through negotiating with tyrants. We won’t maintain them unless today’s tyrants believe we’ll back our wishes with iron wills. Unless Putin believes the price of remaining in Ukraine will be too high for him, unless Xi believes an invasion of Taiwan will threaten the stability of the empire he commands, unless the new Iranian leadership recognizes they’d better spend their oil and gas money on public infrastructure because military buildup will be met with military force, then Open Societies will find no purchase at the negotiation table.

The autocracies of our world are watching the events in the Persian Gulf and taking note. They see how deeply unpopular the war is, and feed that sentiment through massive investments in information war. The liberal democratic American opposition is falling into their trap. We who are committed to ensuring a future for Open Societies, who believe every human deserves political freedom, need to make the democratic case for victory. Not out of our love of Trump, but from our hatred of tyranny, and from an understanding that conflicts will only be resolved through diplomacy if our adversaries know we’re willing to use other means.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)