More on the "A" Word

The foreign policy blogosphere has been full of discussion over President Bush's cry of "appeasement" in his speech before the Israeli Knesset.

At the Citizens for Global Solutions blog, Raj Purohit wrote:

"Consider that at the very time Mr. Bush was speaking to the Knesset, his Special Advisor to Sudan, Richard Williamson, was preparing to travel to Geneva for normalization discussions with the Sudanese government, a regime that has been accused of genocide in Darfur and of acting as a state sponsor of terrorism.

The President did not seem to grasp the inconsistency of criticizing diplomacy while sending his envoy to meet with the Sudanese with the intent to end the Darfur genocide through diplomacy."

At Democracy Arsenal, David Shorr wrote:

"This is not a debate over whether negotiations will always work; of course they won't resolve every situation. It's a debate over when negotiations should be tried. Recent policy gives us a pretty good data set for the refuse-to-negotiate idea. The theory of issuing demands, standing tough, and waiting for the other side to capitulate hasn't been shown to work so well."

And finally, also at Democracy Arsenal, Shawn Brimley wrote:

"Dear Mr. President,

Sir, I thought you should be aware that your conflation of diplomacy with appeasement continues to undermine America's position in the world. The definitions of both words follow:

Diplomacy: The art or practice of conducting international relations, as in negotiating alliances, treaties, and agreements.

Appeasement: The policy of granting concessions to potential enemies to maintain peace.

The exercise of diplomacy is not a concession, and does not constitute appeasement.

Respectfully, Shawn."