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December 23, 2003

Diplomacy vs Action

If I remember it correctly there is an English saying:

Diplomacy is the art of saying nice doggy until you can find a big stick.
Debate is the art of hitting the dog with the stick until it gives up.

If you don't have the big stick you may end up having to say 'nice doggy' for a very long time and you may still end up loosing your arm.

There are a whole bunch of iriots (combines iraq and idiot) who are running around saying that diplomacy would have worked if given a chance - after all it worked with Qaddafi (Libya). I think this is (borrowing another classic phrase) putting the cart before the horse(*). Diplomacy would not; could not; and did not have work with Libya prior to the doggy sighting the whopping big stick that was being waved in Iraq. All of a sudden realisation dawned that the US would no longer be hobbled by the twits in France and the UN. All the protection provided by France (who was trading with Iraq like nobodies business) meant nothing if the US was prepared to act unilaterally (which it did). Hence the appearance of common sense in Libya. For a far more detailed (and much better written) commentary, check out: USS Clueless:

Diplomacy can accomplish much. Those who claim that now are not wrong. What's wrong is what they're leaving out: diplomacy is usually much more effective when backed by a credible threat of force. What the Chinese/Russians/et-al are trying to do is to downplay that aspect of this diplomatic triumph, and to ignore the fact that what finally made Qaddafi capitulate was not ferocious scowling from continental Europe or years of trade sanctions. It was naked fear of the US Marines, and the realization that the 9/11 attack had made America willing to use them or other forces it has against nations it thought were non-imminent threats. (Like Libya.)
The Weasels are trying to use a triumph of the threat of force as a demonstration of why you don't need threats of force. But it won't work, because they can't explain why they themselves could not do what Blair's government actually did, and why this agreement happened when it did. They can ignore the "coincidence" of events in Iraq, but no one else will.
This is yet another major defeat for the forces who oppose us in the war, and a complete vindication forthose who think it is better to negotiate from a position of strength than from a position of weakness.

* Do Americans call it a cart? In English you catch a tram (American trolley) and you shop with a trolly (American cart) and you put a cart after a horse not in front of it (American carriage?).

Posted by Ozguru at December 23, 2003 08:12 AM

Comments

yeah, cart, horse drawn cart, not horse pushed cart. Is it a "shopping trolly" or just a "trolly" or both?

Posted by: jaboobie at December 23, 2003 08:12 AM

There is a followup at USS Clueless called: French Ego-Bruise. Both articles are well worth reading.

Posted by: ozguru at December 23, 2003 08:12 AM

I think I misspelled the word - it should be "trolley" and it doesn't need the "shopping" in front of it. Interestingly, when I thing about it, the wheeled platform we use for moving computer gear is also a trolley even though it looks nothing like a supermarket cart. I am glad the 'horse and cart' phrase works for Americans though. I used the old "miss is as good as a mile" the other day with a graduate and he gave me a really weird look. I guess miles are old-hat. We switched to kms around 1975.

Posted by: ozguru at December 23, 2003 08:12 AM