Non-verbal communication

Foreign policy “realists” like James Baker and ninny-Dems like Nancy Pelosi agree that when it comes to foreign policy we should talk to our enemies, not just our friends. But, as Jim Hoagland points out, there are often better ways to find out what our enemies want than through talk. By murdering Lebanese politicians and journalists opposed to Syrian control of Lebanon, the Assad regime has communicated quite clearly one of the things it wants from the United States in exchange for its “help” in Iraq. But selling out Lebanon is too a high a price to pay for promises from a government that doesn’t keep them and that, in any event, has no ability to curb the sectarian fighting in Iraq that constitutes the one problem the U.S. can’t handle on its own.