New Book Asks: Negotiate With Terrorists?

A one-time senior aide to former British prime minister Tony Blair is calling for Western powers to negotiate with the extremists of the Islamic State militant group and, in a book just published in the United States, argues that history suggests governments nearly always end up talking to terrorists. 

The publication in the U.S. of Terrorists at the Table: Why Negotiating is the Only Way to Peace by Jonathan Powell, has sparked debate about whether it really is possible to negotiate with Islamic extremists in the Levant — and what exactly could be negotiated with them.

Powell cites a long list of terrorists-turned-negotiating-partners to further his argument for dialogue. He mentions Ireland’s Eamon de Valera, Israel’s Menachem Begin, Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta, and the Cypriot Archbishop Makarios, who was exiled to the Seychelles but then after peace negotiations, reappeared as the first leader of an independent Cyprus.

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“This is a question of religious radicalism versus nationalism,” said Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based research institution.

“Salafi-jihadi ideology is far less conducive to dialogue and compromise than nationalist ideologies. Moreover, the British government had concessions to give the IRA,” he said. “The West has nothing to offer the Islamic State. That complicates Powell’s premise considerably.”

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