Imposing is not negotiating

There is a confusion that needs clearing up from the outset: pressure is not diplomacy. They are different things, and treating them as though they were the same is the underlying error at the heart of Trump’s foreign policy.

Negotiation is a process. It assumes that the other side exists, that it has interests of its own, and that no durable solution can be built by ignoring that. Not because it is a matter of courtesy, but because solutions that do not incorporate the other side simply do not hold. They are signed today and broken tomorrow. Or worse: they are never signed at all, and the conflict remains open beneath the surface, building pressure until it........

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