When Democracies Negotiate With Despots

Occidental Soapbox has made a pair of videos out of a presentation by Professor Paul Eidelberg on Israel National Radio. He says:

I came across this wonderful presentation on Israel National Radio from January 26, 2009. Professor Paul Eidelberg is an internationally known political scientist, author and lecturer, and the founder and president of The Foundation for Constitutional Democracy with offices in Jerusalem and Washington, DC. He is also president of the Yamin Israel party.

Prof. Eidelberg’s topic is the difference between diplomacy as conducted by democracies and by military dictatorships. It has great relevance for the coming months, in which the Greatest Negotiator of All Time — Barack Hussein Obama — will set out to negotiate with any and every thug on the planet.

Here’s video #1:


Some excerpts from the text:
- - - - - - - - -

The second error of democratic diplomacy is the prejudice that international conflict is caused primarily by lack of mutual understanding, the supposed root of mutual fear and suspicion. The assumption, typical of the liberal-democratic mind, is that men are by nature benevolent and that through discussion they will discover that what they have in common is more important than their differences.

[…]

Unfortunately, history has little significance for democratic societies whose politicians and diplomats are animated by an election-oriented and short-term pragmatism. This “now” mentality renders democrats impatient for results and dictators know how to exploit this impatience. They know that democratic leaders have a personal political interest in the appearance of successful negotiations. Dictators can violate agreements, confident that a democratic prime minister will be reluctant to admit any failure in his own diplomatic achievements.

Visit Occidental Soapbox for the second video, and a complete transcript of the presentation.