K-Drum writes: “Conservatives often accuse liberals of elevating negotiation into an end in itself. It’s a fatuous charge, but its mirror image isn’t: as a matter of principle, contemporary conservatives really do seem to have broadly rejected even the idea of negotiating with our enemies.”

True, and yet I’d press further. Conservatives combine this with an oddly expansive view of who “our enemies” are. Iran is plausibly characterized as an enemy who liberals think we should negotiate with. Our lack of diplomatic relations dates back to the hostage crisis in the immediate aftermath of the Islamic Revolution, and the Revolution was loaded with anti-American rhetoric and ideology from the get-go. It’s a bona fide enemy, and we should negotiate with them.

But in what sense is Syria “our enemy” except in the sense that the Bush administration won’t conduct diplomacy with the Syrian government? Syria isn’t pushing for regime change in the United States. Syria isn’t trying to conquer Mexico as part of a first step to restructure the politics of North America. Syria was part of our coalition during the first Gulf War. Throughout the Clinton administration there were frequent US-Syrian diplomatic talks running parallel to US-Israeli diplomatic talks aimed (unsuccessfully) at resolving the dispute over the Golan Heights and normalizing relations between Syria and Israel. After Operation Grapes of Wrath the US and Syria worked together on the Israel-Lebanon Monitoring Agreement. After 9/11, Syria offered intelligence cooperation against al-Qaeda.

Syria’s not an ally of the United States. But it’s not our enemy in any meaningful sense. It’s just a country the administration more-or-less severed diplomacy with unilaterally for no real reason.

There’s good and there’s bad in David Ignatius column on diplomacy with Syria but the genuinely absurd part of the column is not-at-all something Ignatius can be blamed for. And it’s right here at the beginning:

DAMASCUS, Syria — What positions would Syria take if it entered a dialogue with the United States about Iraq and other Middle East issues? I put that question Thursday to Walid Moallem, Syria’s foreign minister, and he offered surprisingly strong support for the recommendations made last week in the Baker-Hamilton report.

Note the dateline: Damascus. Note the interviewee: Syria’s foreign minister. It’s not that hard. I don’t have the budget for a trip to Damascus, and I bet I lack the clout for an interview with the foreign minister. But the State Department can surely swing the trip. Exploring the possibility of diplomacy requires, quite simply, nothing more than for Rice or Robert Zoellick or David Welch to, you know, go to Syria and ask what’s up. It’s lazy, insane, or just insane laziness not to do it. But no. Top officials will meet with the Syrian opposition but not the Syrian government. Because, I guess, if we close our eyes and wish hard enough, the Syrian government will just go away and the opposition will take over?

At any rate, here’s Ignatius’ complete interview with the Foreign Minister, and good for him for making the trip.

Condoleezza Rice explains that there’ll be no new diplomatic initiatives with Iran and Syria because “neither country should need incentives to foster stability in Iraq.” What’s more, she “also said there would be no retreat from the administration’s push to promote democracy in the Middle East.”

Seriously, people, it’s time to grow up. Sitting around in the Situation Room and deciding that other countries just should do what we want them to do so there’s no need for diplomacy is insane. The way the world works is that if you want some countries to do some things, you need to discuss this fact with them, ascertain what their actual views on the matter are, see what they would want you to do in exchange, and then make a decision. Rice rejected this option “saying the ‘compensation’ required by any deal might be too high.” Get that again. She won’t talk to Syria and Iran to explore options because the price might — might — be too high. Why not find out?

The interaction of this “they should do it anyway” view with the democracy view is especially toxic. Promoting democracy, in this context, means putting an anti-Iranian government in Baghdad, putting an anti-Syrian government in Lebanon, and overthrowing the regimes in Damascus and Teheran. Let that be as desirable as you like, but it’s obvious that neither Syria or Iran is going to help us bring stability to anything as long as that remains the medium-term objective of our policy. Most insanely of all, given the circumstances insisting on “the administration’s push to promote democracy in the Middle East” isn’t going to actually promote democracy in the Middle East. It’s just going to ensure that Iraq slips ever-deeper into chaos and that we more-and-more lose our grip on the situation.