Eh, What's Up, Dems?

Bill Kristol has come up with a new name for the Ned Lamont Democrats. See if you can guess what it is?

We should work diplomatically and aggressively to give them reasons why they [the Iranians] don't need to build a bomb, to give them incentives. . . . I'd like to use carrots as well as sticks to see if we can change the nature of the debate.
--Ned Lamont, April 25, 2006

Ned Lamont's victory over Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut primary was a triumph for the European wing of the Democratic party. So it's fitting that Lamont is pro-carrot. It was impossible to go to Europe during Bush's first term without getting a lecture about the utility of carrots, the futility of sticks, and the Bush administration's regrettable neglect of the former and unfortunate proclivity for the latter. So Lamont is an appropriate spokesman for what one might call the Bugs Bunny caucus that now dominates the Democratic party.

Lieberman is fighting that dominance by not conceding his seat to Lamont--but others are rushing to ingratiate themselves to the new powers that be in their party. Former Clinton U.N. ambassador and hopeful Democratic secretary of state Richard Holbrooke--something of a Liebermanite in the past--tried to get right with the Bugs Bunny-ites in a Washington Post op-ed two days after Lamont's victory. His point? More diplomacy. In particular, we need "sustained high-level diplomacy" with Syria and Iran.
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Instead, there should be three U.S. foreign policy priorities: "containing the violence," "finding a stable and secure solution that protects Israel," and "unwinding America's disastrous entanglement in Iraq in a manner that is not a complete humiliation and does not lead to even greater turmoil." The first really means not defeating Hezbollah. The second means nothing. As for the third--"not a complete humiliation"--now there's a foreign policy slogan for the Bugs Bunny Democrats!

This is the kind of approach that worked so well in North Korea. In the 90's the NoKos started acting up, so we ran Jimmuh Carter over there to negotiate with the punks and ended up giving them all kinds of money and technology to play nice. The NoKos played Carter like the fool he is, took all our goodies, and continued doing what they were doing, just not doing it in public. When the coffers were empty once again, they started acting up again figuring the good ole USA could be intimidated into paying blackmail like they did in the 90's. It hasn't worked out so well for them under the Bush administration.

However, Kristol hasn't been much of a fan of the Bush administration when it comes to a "carrot-based" foreign policy either:

So the Democrats are hopeless. Unfortunately, back in the real world, Bush administration policy hasn't been particularly strong either. During its second term, the Bush administration has come too close to embracing Holbrookean passivity. And what good has the recent affinity for carrots done us? Are our enemies in retreat? Are Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Moktada al-Sadr, Bashar Assad, the Sunni holy warriors in Iraq, al Qaeda operatives and sympathizers in the United Kingdom, and Kim Jong Il on the run? Have they become more cooperative, and less bent on trouble, since Secretary of State Rice started serving up the carrots last year?

Kristol has always been a fan of a muscular foreign policy, and when dealing with the rogue nations of the world, he's probably right. Many leaders, more Dems than not, still believe you can negotiate with bad people and those bad people will honor their agreements. That's simply naive and very, very wrong. That's why they get played like a bad fiddle every time they try and make agreements with nations who have no interest in honesty. American leaders of the "carrot" persuasion are far too trusting of people who are in reality our enemies.

Carrots may be good for your eyes, but they're bad for your country's security.