Pariah Politics
By Bernard B. Kerik

February 13, 2007

Senator John Kerry, not content with disparaging our troops with his infamous “flubbed joke,” now goes to the World Economic Forum meeting in Switzerland and disparages all of America, saying that we have become an “international pariah” under the Bush presidency, particularly because of the situation in Iraq. 

Does Senator Kerry believe that the US was an international pariah during the years that preceded the 2000 elections?  Probably not. What then would he call those years?  Were they a time when America exercised—as he just called for in Switzerland—“diplomacy to improve national security?” Would diplomacy have thwarted the plans of fanatical murderers to plow airplanes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and, except for the courage of the passengers on Flight 93, possibly the US Senate building?   

Maybe Senator Kerry believes that we should engage the apocalyptic President of Iran, Muhammad Ahmandinejad, in “constructive dialogue,” on the development and nurturing of democracy and personal freedoms in Iraq and the larger Middle East. The problem there is that these liberties do not square with Ahmadinejad’s version of a victorious Islamic world empire, an empire that includes the destruction of Israel and all people of differing faiths.  Diplomacy will not move him from this belief.

Saddam Hussein certainly never adhered to the strictures of diplomatic agreements. He repeatedly spurned all attempts of the United Nations to allow weapons inspectors into the country or, on those occasions when he did, severely restricted the inspector’s access to people and places.  He did nothing more than orchestrate a dog and pony show, run in the glare of the worldwide media in a calculated attempt to “show” cooperation.   

And what of the intense diplomatic efforts that President Clinton brought upon Israel and the PLO in an attempt to reach a solution to the Palestinian issue.  On multiple occasions, the President and the Israelis were rebuffed by Yasser Arafat, who refused all attempts at conciliation.  The diplomacy came to naught because Arafat wanted to get everything while giving up nothing.  And although some would call President Clinton’s efforts a diplomatic failure, it was really just more of the same from the “diplomats” of the PLO.  Consider that UN Resolution 242, adopted after the Six Day War as a basis to establish Arab-Israeli peace, was passed in 1967. 

Do we really need more of this type of diplomacy for the sake of diplomacy charade? 

And in the many demonstrations in Europe and the Middle East last year over the printing of the Muhammad cartoons, demonstrators held signs declaring such freedoms of expression as “Behead those who insult Islam” and “Butcher those who mock Islam.”  Does Senator Kerry suggest that diplomacy can break through to such single-minded obsessions as expressed by these views?

Similarly, in the controversy around the remarks of Pope Benedict XVI about the Muslim religion, thousands took to the streets, some calling for an apology, but others, many others, calling for the pope’s beheading.  In Somalia, a country torn by Islamic warfare, an Italian nun was killed—targeted and executed—in retaliation for the Pope’s comments after a Somali cleric called for the Pope’s assassination. Churches throughout the Muslim world were firebombed. 

It’s not like our enemies are not clear about their goals.  An al Qaeda training manual captured in England some years ago is instructive on this point.  It reads, in part, “The confrontation that Islam calls for with these godless and apostate regimes does not know Socratic debates, Platonic ideals nor Aristotelian diplomacy.  But it does know the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing and destruction, and thediplomacy of the cannon and machine gun.”  No room for negotiation there.  

Diplomacy can be instrumental in negotiating peace treaties or when grievances arise between nations, such as a dispute over a border or the damming of a river. It can also be a means to exert pressure to obtain a desired result. But to those who pursue the ideals of Islamic jihad, their only grievance with us—the godless and apostate people of the world—is that we exist.  They have no regard for diplomacy and are immune to diplomatic pressures. 

Unlike the terrorists, we do not engage in the murder of innocents because we are offended or because of differing religious views. Faced with an enemy whose tools are kidnapping, torture, execution and beheadings, our task is to improve security by all means necessary. And despite Senator Kerry’s denunciations, diplomacy is playing a part in that process.  But it is just that; a part of a larger process. It is not a panacea.

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Bernard B. Kerik, Chairman & CEO of The Kerik Group