Only by engaging politically with those they decry as terrorists can western leaders make real progress in the Middle East, writes Tony Kinsella
Being tough on terrorism is necessary, but can become a dangerously seductive replacement for governance. Giving in to the temptation all too often sends world leaders tripping into a political cul-de-sac, one where their only escape depends on the political sophistication of terrorists.
Gordon Brown was at it at the British Labour Party conference, echoing a procession of leaders at the UN General Assembly last week. Israel's vice-premier, Shimon Peres, gave a perfect illustration when he commented favourably on the Saudi peace plan in the Guardian (September 25th) but warned that Hamas and Hizbullah were a "basic obstacle" to peace. If they are the basic obstacle, then the answer to peace in the Middle East must lie with them, not him.
We often fail to recognise that use of the term "terrorist" is more of a value judgment than an objective description. Labelling an opponent as a terrorist denies them any legitimacy and carries with it inherent implications that the individuals or groups concerned are irrational.
Individual terrorists are psychopaths, criminals, or both. The populations they spring from are somehow unstable, or prone to violence, be they Arab, Afghan, or Irish. In days of yore such statements were explicit; if nowadays they tend to be only hinted at, their import remains the same.
A state is confronted with armed actions undertaken by an irrational group of evil people. Once that becomes the accepted reality, the only viable answer has to be to hunt them down and eliminate at least their capacity to act; an answer as simple, obvious, and seductive as it is erroneous. Terrorist groups can only survive, or even thrive, where they offer expression to a widely held feeling. Experience shows that groups of terrorists lacking popular support can be defeated through effective policing and security operations - the German Baader-Meinhof RAF or the Italian Red Brigades. Where terrorist groups echo some of a population's feelings, they cannot be defeated by force alone, however well applied. The IRA, the Basque Eta, or Lebanon's Hizbullah are good examples.
Brutal application of overwhelming force can, sometimes, destroy a particular movement but the process of applying such force usually sows the seeds for a future round. Effective security measures, without any matching political approach, can actually be counter-productive.
The brilliance of Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero showed in his government's recognition of this, maintaining the security pressure while offering real political openings. Slowly but steadily the smouldering, vicious war in the Basque region is being negotiated out of existence.
Small terrorist groups, rather like those illustrated in Monty Python's Life of Brian, are renowned for their ability to draw up lists of simple, impossible, demands. Eta is no exception with its demand for an independent Basque state, including not only the Basque region of Euskadi, but significant parts of Navarre and southwest France as well.
Madrid, in agreeing to explore methods of maximising Basque autonomy within a federal Spain, took control of a realistic political agenda, one the overwhelming majority of Basques could be persuaded to explore.
Governments clinging to sterile positions box themselves into the ultimate terrorist trap - obliged to rely on those they decry as terrorists to supply the political dexterity and sophistication necessary for a solution.Shimon Peres is disingenuous or blinkered when he labels Hamas and Hizbullah as "the obstacle to peace" in the Middle East. Israel, with CIA assistance, facilitated the emergence of Hamas as a local pious alternative to Yasser Arafat's intractable Fatah-dominated PLO. Hizbullah was born of Lebanese Shia resistance to Israel's 1982 invasion.
There are many obstacles to peace in the Middle East, most of them to be found in the yawning chasm that separates Israeli policies from Palestinian demands.
If the rocket-firing militants of Hamas are one such obstacle, the 450,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank are certainly another.
Today's most threatening terrorism comes from a small group of Islamic fundamentalists. Defeating, or at least containing, that terrorism threat demands effective security measures and a political response to the one conflict Kofi Annan identified in his farewell address to the UN General Assembly as having global ramifications - the Israeli-Palestinian morass.
Annan warned that "as long as the Palestinians live under occupation, exposed to daily frustration and humiliation, and as long as Israelis are blown up in buses or in dance halls, so long will passions everywhere be inflamed".
Reiterating value judgments may be comforting, but it is also sterile, dangerous, and ultimately self-defeating. To borrow from General Bosquet's famous comment on the Charge of the Light Brigade, "C'est pathetique, pas la politique."
Tony Kinsella is co-author, with Fintan O'Toole, of Why America Can't Rule The World, an examination of the limitations of US power.