Time To Negotiate With Al Qaeda?

Talking To Al Qaeda? Don't Rule It Out, Some Say

Courtesy Of: Reuters
By Mark Trevelyan,
Security Correspondent
Thu Sep 13, 11:04 AM ET
News.Yahoo

LONDON (Reuters) - Six years after the September 11 attacks, a few cautious voices are beginning to suggest the unthinkable -- maybe it is time to consider talking to al Qaeda.

The idea will revolt some people and raises obvious questions -- through what channels could such a dialogue take place and what would there be to negotiate?

But proponents say al Qaeda has established itself as a de facto power, whether the West likes it or not, and history shows militant movements are best neutralized by negotiation, not war.

"No insurgency or terrorism has been defeated by warfare or violence," former Anglican church envoy and hostage negotiator Terry Waite said in a debate on BBC World television.

"There are some rational players in al Qaeda but it also attracts the psychotic. We need to seek an entry point," said the Briton, himself a captive in Lebanon from 1987 to 1991.

Jan Egeland, a Norwegian who helped broker secret talks between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation in the 1990s and later, as a top U.N. official, dealt with warlords and guerrilla leaders from Colombia to Uganda, told Reuters: "I wouldn't rule out speaking to anybody, a priori."

He went on: "It depends on who you speak to, but also what you speak to them about. I'm willing to speak to the devil to help the victims in the depths of hell. If I could have a meeting with al Qaeda where one could impress upon them that they are the biggest anti-Islamic force around, why not?"

CALCULUS OF PAIN

Historically, analysts say, the issue of whether to talk to groups labeled terrorists is usually decisively influenced by the realization that there is no way to defeat them, as in the case of the United States with North Vietnam's Vietcong or South Africa with Nelson Mandela's African National Congress.

"When we can't win a war, we sit down and talk with terrorists and we stop calling them terrorists," said Mark Perry, Washington-based director of Conflicts Forum, which tries to build bridges between the West and political Islam.

So if the war on terrorism fails to beat al Qaeda, might we one day sit down with them?

"I suppose it's thinkable. You'd have to make a pain-pleasure calculus ... how many casualties are we going to be able to sustain?" said Perry, whose organization promotes dialogue with groups like Hamas which -- unlike al Qaeda -- take part in the democratic process.

For Egeland, who now heads the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, one peril of entering negotiations is to confer legitimacy on your opponent, sending a signal that anyone who commits mass murder will be treated as a serious actor.

But he believes there may come a time when cracks appear in al Qaeda and negotiations can help split it further.

"One likely scenario with al Qaeda is that they will indeed become increasingly unpopular in the Muslim world and they will split and there will be back channels (of negotiation) to various of their networks," he said.

"That will be done by religious groups, by Muslim groups working with smaller actors, smaller countries. Middle Eastern countries, perhaps radical countries will be involved, that's the new way of diplomacy. It's not going to be the European Union or the U.S. doing it."