The Radicals' Not-So-Secret Winning Strategy

From GLORIA, March 7, 2007, by Barry Rubin ...

The world's radical regimes--especially Iran, Syria, North Korea, and their associated client groups--have come up with a brilliant strategy that breaks every rule in the diplomatic book and yet works brilliantly. The West's inability to cope with this approach--indeed, failure even to comprehend it--has been one of the biggest problems in Middle Eastern and world politics for the last few decades....

..... A key element in this strategy is that it plays to the strengths of the perpetrators and the perceived weaknesses of the West. On their side, the radicals have several advantages: they like conflict; are patient; not bound by morality (that is, they don't mind murdering people in cold blood); and are willing to suffer (or, rather, let their people suffer since the dictators always eat well). Since they are dictators, they don't care about public opinion and even mobilize it for themselves through demagoguery. (As dictators, they also control the schools and media.)

In contrast, the West likes peace, is impatient for solutions, and doesn't like casualties. As democracies, their people are divided and thus vulnerable to the extremists' propaganda.

So what are the main elements of the radicals' regulations?

1. Ignore the balance of forces. Who cares if the other side is stronger? What are they going to do, attack us?
2. And if they attack us, let our people suffer to make them feel guilty. Use demagoguery at home to promote the appeal of martyrdom and launch appeals for sympathy abroad.
3. Never end a conflict even if you are losing; never make major concessions because keeping the issue open may mean you will win, and get everything, in the future. Show you are willing to destroy everything and go on fighting forever in order to discourage the other side.
4. Fool the West with propaganda; promise to be good if they only give you what you want. Get concessions and then break your promises about giving anything in exchange. They won't dare call you on it or will forget it.
5. Throw in some offers of compromise periodically, even if you don't stick to them. Western leaders will rush to make a deal in order to avoid confrontation, make progress, or get glory for themselves.

Thus, in the 1950s and 1960s, Egyptian dictator Gamal Abdel Nasser said that, if the West doesn't like what we do, let them drink the Nile. In the 1970s and 1980s, Iranian dictator Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini said, the West cannot do a damn thing. Yasir Arafat committed terrorism for 30 years and made the West fund him and beg for his cooperation. Saddam Hussein in the 1990s said, let them continue sanctions, rather than fulfill his commitments. Today, there is Iran's nuclear campaign and Syria's terrorism against its neighbors.

There are some specific countries--especially India, Israel, South Korea and Turkey--whose survival requires them to make an equally tough response with popular support at home. In contrast, crippled by European weakness and its own intellectual fifth column, its priority on high living standards and low levels of bloodshed, the West has a hard time dealing with this problem.

And yet, nevertheless, the West and democratic world will win, for the traditional rules ultimately will apply. For example, the extremists force the West to oppose them by their very aggressiveness; economic and strategic superiority does count. The problem is that this new radical strategic superweapon makes it harder and longer to achieve this result.