George W. Bush has a unique recipe for diplomacy. If served up right, it's got a kick like a Texas mule...
- Explain to another country how they must behave...or else.
- Refuse to talk to them until they comply with your ultimatum.
- If they don't comply and have something you want, attack them as a matter of preemptive necessity.
That's it! His recipe is beautiful in its simplicity. He removes diplomacy from the diplomatic process. No more time consuming discussions going back and forth. No pesky give and take. Compromise is for wimps. Since Bush won't speak to the other side, he doesn't have to worry about getting trapped by ambiguous language. That's just how he wants it. If you're George W. Bush, language is the enemy.
You could see the ingredients of this strange brew in Bush's recent comment to Tony Blair: "See, the irony is what they really need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit." No discussion necessary. Syria commands and Hezbollah obeys.
Let's hope Bush's latest batch of this bull-headed concoction, which he's whipping up with the help of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, doesn't boil over. If it does a lot of people will get burned.
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