short thread on @Rob_Malley: Over a decade ago, after he was sidelined from Obama campaign for talking to Hamas, I went to hear him describe to a small group what the Hamas trip told him (a trip he made as a think-tanker, not a campaigner)...
...he a) made clear he thought Hamas was bad b) said talking to the group was inevitable because it controlled Gaza c) concluded it was not worth engaging right then because Hamas was a mess and rejectionists had a determinative voice. At the end of the day...
...Malley came to the same conclusion as the folks who drove him out of the campaign: don't engage with Hamas right then. Except his critics argued that Hamas is so irredeemable that to engage it is to lend it sustenance, while Malley probed the group to figure out...
...where it was headed and whether its damage could be mitigated. That's the ideological argument at stake, not one of embracing tyrants, but of the best means of mitigating their damage: Squeezing them until they die, or figuring out the means of living with them because...
...squeezing them does not kill them, it harms the squeezer. It's a good argument to have! If you think talking at all with tyrants is bad policy, it's, yes, a reason to oppose Malley! What doesn't help is mischaracterizing the "talk to them" side as evil and embracing tyranny.
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