Would You Like to Buy a Border?

Having spent a little time in the bazaars, suqs and casbahs of the middle-east, I’m no better at negotiating, but still I’ve managed to glean a few useful lessons. Here are a few:

1. Always hide your bottom line. A seller who tells you what he paid for something is lying every time. Telling a seller that you’ll only pay so much for something will lead to excuses and feigned anger.

2. Everyone wants something better than their bottom line. Profits and bargains are made this way. No seller will ever let something go for less than what they paid.   

3. All stories of hardship are half-true at best. All stories about family, hardship, the cost of getting something to market, its rarity or value to the outside world, should mostly be ignored.

4. Don’t mistake a tough negotiator for a bad person. After the deal’s done, you may find that they’re beyond hospitable.

5. As long as you can walk away and the other guy knows it, you’re in the power position. Never look desperate. Make polite excuses while ignoring their own.

Here in the west, we’re accustomed to everything having a price tag. We expect rules to be rules, and assume that we’ll get a fair deal most of the time without trying. In the middle-east, none of that applies. Everything is negotiable, and everyone is negotiating. Maximalist positions, bizarre statements, and dramatic pleas for mercy are all part of the process. Taking any of it at face value is not only counter to its intent, but also just about the worst thing you can do as party to an agreement.

Take the middle-east’s reactions to Obama’s declaration that a settlement between Israel and Palestine be based on the 1967 borders. This position has been the basis of all negotiations since at least the time of Clinton. All but the most radical elements on both sides have a pretty clear understanding that a final settlement will involve a litany of tradeoffs around that fraying 44-year-old line.  How to the rules of the bazaar apply?

1. Always hide your bottom line. The major sticking points in a negotiation are around the status of Jerusalem, the right of return for Palestinian refugees, land swaps for Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and the security guarantees of a unity government that includes Hamas, who has yet to recognize Israel as a state. We all know these things. They’re real issues. What no one knows is what has to give, and in what ways, for both sides to walk away happy.  

2. Everyone wants something better than their bottom line. If one side just goes for the minimal acceptable deal, then they’ll get less than that. To maximize one’s own position, you have to ask for more. Israel has to get security guarantees out of Palestine and the deal-brokers in the west. Palestine will have to demand the right of return for all its refugee populations in Syria, Jordan and elsewhere. Otherwise, a deal will leave all of them with no rights.  Jerusalem is all-or-nothing; anything less, and you’ve already conceded that it doesn’t matter so much.

3. All stories of hardship are half-true at best. I’ve been in rooms with West Bank Jewish settlers who break down in tears at the thought of having to leave their hard-fought lands, without mentioning who lost in that struggle. I’ve heard many Palestinians speak about the occupation without once bringing up terrorism. There’s no point in arguing over equivalence. Acknowledging the other side’s hardships weakens one’s own position. Callousness shouldn’t be confused with being less than serious about a deal.

4. Don’t mistake a tough negotiator for a bad person. There are elements within Likud, Kadima, Hamas, and Fatah, who have made ridiculous demands, stated half-truths, screamed bloody murder and accused the other side of the worst crimes. Some of it’s true, some isn’t, and some is just speculation. It’s all part of the process. Cutting through all of that to see if there really is good will on the other side of the table is essential. Token sacrifices of one’s own position can help assess this. We see that on both sides, like when Netanyahu calls for a two-state solution and loosens the West Bank checkpoints, or Hamas goes to lengths to enforce a ceasefire among the Gaza militants. It’s an article of faith, but I believe that all of these people really can live together. They just need to get through to a final deal.

5. As long as you can walk away and the other guy knows it, you’re in the power position. Here is where I worry. Neither side can walk away. Both sides face real, existential threats from the other. Israel’s perpetual stalling on talks while building new settlements shows an almost glib disregard for both adversaries and allies. Demographic pressures, and the moral danger of becoming an apartheid-pariah state all demand a deal. Palestinians who expect the Arab Spring to sweep them into statehood should be prepared for a pushback not only from Israel, but from Jordan and Syria, where Palestinian refugees have long been held at arms’ length.  Staying non-violent while pressing their demands is a real challenge for Palestinians.  

I worry that Israel thinks it can just walk away without paying. I worry that Palestinians will get too caught up in their genuine moral struggle to justify a fair deal, and lose it all. Most of all, I worry that the United States, Europe, and other allies to the region, will not place the pressure on both sides needed to force the negotiation.

But this is not a bazaar. With our own nation’s stake the region’s security, these players should not have the choice to do business or not. With our own nation’s influence, both diplomatic and financial, there is no reason why we can’t demand more from both sides. Everyone will think a deal is impossible until they’re forced to hash it out in a sweaty room. That is what we bring to the table. It’s time for us to make our own demands.

What Kind of Ideology Is This?

I don’t trust anyone who has a ready answer before they have heard the question. That’s a habit of people in love with their own ideologies. When was the last time an ideology did anything for anyone other than professors and politicians-- two groups that have a heavy stake in tailoring debates around a foregone conclusion. People who view all public decisionmaking as a choice between freedom and tyranny, as many extremists do, are always and without exception in the service of tyrants.

Enough with the tortured logic employed by free-market fundamentalists to avoid the obvious, though boring and often technocratic answers to society’s demands for things like non-carcinogenic food, clean water, health care or housing. I’ve heard all too damn many fat, pampered call-in listeners on AM radio go on about the idea that taxation is theft as they cruise down our nation’s interstates in a subsidized-gas-filled, safety-tested SUV.

America expends vastly more political energy on rancorous debates on the size of government, rather than considering what government does, and the a la carte menu of palatable alternatives. It’s not the size. It’s what it does, how well it does it, and what our options are as a nation. Before any more decisions are made, I propose that:

1. Anybody in power who tells you that there are no tradeoffs or compromises between freedom and security should be required to answer whether this principle should apply to those outside the top tax bracket, and how that principle of freedom will be secured given the high costs of basic things like education, health care, and rent.

2. Any democratically-elected representative of the People who says that government has no role in arbitrating people’s preferred balancing acts of freedom and security should have to supply an alternate explanation for what they’re doing for their constituents.

3. Any public figure who uses the words “freedom” or “liberty” in the same sentence should be required to either a. explore the freedom and liberty of living on the streets with a mental illness, b. in a backwoods trailer choosing between food stamps and squirrel, or c. explain how freedom and tyranny can be explained without also taking security into account (if they can).

It’s not an absolute choice between freedom and tyranny. It never was. Security, be it corporeal, martial, or social is why we bother with a government. Security is a buffer between freedom and tyranny. Governments are in the business of supplying security to their citizens. Why? Because they’re better at it than a shotgun.  

Here is the equation that should underpin all ideological discussions:

Ideology = (Freedom-Tyranny) / Security

Freedom, tyranny, and security are moving parts. You trade between them to balance whatever your ideological outcome should be. If any piece is missing, the whole thing falls apart.

It’s good to be suspicious of an ideology whose logical conclusion is to tell the government to stop looking into the dealings of oil companies, hospitals, or other enterprise in the public interest, as if the government is the problem. It’s important to be skeptical about who is behind the idea of abolishing the IRS and having the wealthy man and his butler pay the same low tax rate, especially if you’re the butler. Why? Whose ideas are these? Who stands to benefit most? Does this ideology employ security to balance the level of freedoms it demands?

That distinctly American sentiment towards small government in all instances throws a warm blanket of righteousness over some fairly cold, hard questions that need to be asked.  People who talk a lot about freedom and small government usually gloss over the caveat that you’ll be on your own in their concept of things, much like our simian ancestors in the jungle were. That’s security (or a lack thereof). When cornered, many of those same people will happily declare their indifference or outright contempt for anyone who can’t make it in their social-darwinist utopia. Many of the freedom and small government set confuse their in-born advantages in the pecking order with personal virtue.  These are the values that result from a more or less absent concept of security. This is an exact description of Ron and Rand Paul.

What do I mean? To confuse a right to health care as slavery for its providers is to confuse a right to security under the law as slavery to police and lawyers. It’s savagely stupid and it’s precisely what Senator Rand Paul did last week in a hearing on health care. It’s an ideology that is completely indifferent to matters of personal security beyond what an individual can conjure up for himself. It goes against some pretty basic human ideas.

Let’s get real here. There will be tradeoffs if we’re to be a moral country. Services will cost money. One person’s freedom to do something (e.g., owning guns) is another person’s freedom from that same thing (getting shot). The market is an important allocator of resources, but it’s neither moral, nor functional beyond the scale of a lemonade stand without some outside rules. Even then, is it better to rely on the person in front of you getting sick because Billy didn’t wash his hands, or would you rather know that the lemonade’s safe to drink because someone’s paid to check it out? The world is just too complicated to view things as simple choices between freedom and tyranny. To do so is dangerous and nasty.

It’s all well and good to be fans of freedom and liberty. I like being able to do what I want. But like most of us, I have some concept of when my freedom to do something becomes another’s tyranny. Like most of us, I recognize the moral repugnance of leaving people free to die or live in squalor when it’s well within our power to improve their lot.

American ideology does in fact deal heavily in security. Americans accept that we must balance our own freedoms with those of others. American government must provide some answers to what is a right and what is a privilege. We fight over these things, and we should. We must engage one another not only on what are personal rights, but also on what is right and wrong. The true apostates to American ideology are those who don’t share these beliefs, preferring to value their own personal freedom above all else. I say let them have it.

Requiem for an Urge

I’ve seen the scrawls and statements in the men’s rooms of bars scattered across the country and in many farther-flung locales. Globally, both bathrooms and the bathroom walls of the public variety, share the characteristic of satisfying basic human urges. Each bathroom tells a different story. There are the misspelled racist statements common to truck stops. There are the limericks, witty quips, and graffiti tags of college campuses. And then there’s the unnamed desperation lingering behind a phone number, anatomy drawing, and list of services found in a stall at a Ruby Tuesday’s.

The bathroom walls of DC bars, like most other towns, serve as confession booth, humor outlet, networking tool, and many other purposes not worth mentioning here. Where they stand out is in their overtly political flavor. At a pool hall I’ve seen multi-stanza odes to Condoleeza Rice, clearly written by several authors. In Georgetown I once saw a series of salty back-and-forths originating from the statement, “HR 24 SUCKS!” But far and away, my favorite piece of bathroom wisdom was at a dive bar sometime in early 2002. It said simply,

Give Bin Laden to the Rednecks

No single phrase or instruction has ever captured that tempered need for revenge so many of us felt in my hometown during that gloomy, anxious time. Nowhere in our buttoned-down lives could we just howl. Nowhere had I seen such a clearly stated sense of justice and place in the world. There’s a perfect symmetry to handing that atavistic, parochial, violently sanctimonious fanatic over to the local moral equivalent, his crude caricature of an adversary.

I can't speak for elsewhere, but in DC everyone was sure that nothing was that simple. We all were aware that there was no one reason why streets were closing daily for suspicious packages, war machines were sputtering alive, and the politics of fear and blame clouded all of our thinking. We all knew that the national battle cry for frontier justice precluded all the best options, even as we stifled our own cries for the sake of propriety. We all saw that there was no first cause behind the September 11 attacks, no nerve center to eradicate, no one culprit. But Bin Laden felt damn close to all those things. It just felt that way.

Today, few believe that the violent end of that man will usher in a New Jerusalem, as the bible hints. All but the most naïve retain the illusion that we are exempt from blame for our troubles. Not after ten years of war, if we ever were. Only the malicious believe that revenge is an end in itself. But that includes us all, whether we admit it or not.

All of us have urges to satisfy. He’s in the water now, gone for good. It’s time to flush the toilet, wash our hands, and get back to showing our best side to the world.