Selfless Diplomacy

Condi Rice, on why she won’t use diplomacy to get Syria or Iran to help in Iraq:
Syria and Iran's "only motivation" in entering into such talks would be to draw some advantage for themselves, Rice said, adding that this was not diplomacy but blackmail.

Omigod.  She’s totally right.  How dare a country try to use diplomacy for their own advantage.  Why can’t they be as altruistic as the good ol’ US of A?  We’re only in Iraq to help those poor people, and not because domestic political concerns demand it.  Had WMD’s and imminent plans to use them been found and Bush’s war been justified, I’m sure we’d still be throwing away billions of dollars to help them establish democracy.

And conservatives are famous for only wanting to do what’s best for the world’s people, and would never act solely out of their country’s interests (or their own personal interests).  And that’s just something that those bastard Syrians and Iranians could never understand.  We should expect them to selflessly aid the country that wants to overthrow them, and expect nothing in return.  That’s just the American Way.

But seriously, this just confirms what I wrote in my last post: These people don’t understand the first thing about diplomacy.  To them, diplomacy is what you do when you’ve already gotten everything you want, and you want to reward a country for its subservience.  And with the ways they’ve bungled everything and offended everyone, there’s little wonder we haven’t seen much in the diplomacy department from this administration.

For conservatives, if you’re not already holding all the cards, then you continue to strong-arm your opponents until you do.  And only once they completely capitulate do you give them diplomacy.  That’s been especially true with our North Korean policy (a term I use very loosely), but is really the only policy they have.  They don’t do diplomacy.  And for the Cheney conservatives, the worst thing that could happen would be for both Syria and Iran to finally be convinced to help us.  After all, it would make our eventual invasion of them so much more embarrassing.

God damn fools.