Negotiation tips for sentimentalists

This has been a big month for international diplomacy. The Greek bailout and the Iranian nuclear deal were front page news and everyone has an opinion, especially Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. Yet international negotiations are rarely simple, and it is deceptively easy to look through the mass media's refracting prism and believe we know what actually went on. And of course we could have gotten a better deal than those soft-headed canape-munching suits sitting around conference tables, right? Conversely, our hearts melt for those we perceive as the victims of the machinations of elite technocrats, the bankers and politicians and economists and nuclear scientists who hold sway in heartless wicked places like Brussels, Berlin and Vienna, far-removed from the tribulations of ordinary people in Thessaloniki, Tel Aviv and Texas.

I really couldn't say whether Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is a tragic hero felled by cruel Fate (as enacted by Angela Merkel and Wolfgang Schauble), or whether Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif is a smooth-talking Bond villain who has pulled a fast one over naive John Kerry and feckless Barack Obama. As a nobody living halfway across the world, my opinion doesn't much matter. However, as someone who has spent half a life studying and practicing international relations, I did find myself fascinated with the two diplomatic matches played this week. I grumbled "Really?" or nodded in appreciation ("Well played, sir!") at various enthralling moments and, just as any engaged spectator should, I made mental notes for future reference. Here are some lessons I took away in contrasting the Greek and Iranian strategies for negotiation:

Have a realistic goal. 

What did the Greeks really want? Former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis insists the Syriza government's goal all along was a moderate package of debt restructuring and that his European interlocutors just didn't listen. Really? Or was it that Syriza believed they could foment an anti-austerity revolution that would coerce Germany and the rest of Europe into paying for Greek pensions and other entitlements into the indefinite future? From Varoufakis' pronouncements as an "erratic Marxist" (http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2015/07/06/our-no-is-a-majestic-big-yes-to-a-democratic-rational-europe/#more-8425), you get the sense Syriza thought Greece could be the vanguard of a Leninist revolution that would transform Europe in a jiffy, probably not a realistic ambition for the plodding and rather creaky consensus-based intergovernmental structures of the European Union as it has evolved and expanded over the last half-century. 

The Iranians, on the other hand, knew exactly what they wanted - in the short-term, reprieve from the sanctions that have crippled their economy and increased internal dissent, and in the longer-term, resumption of their goal for regional hegemony. Iran's Western interlocutors were equally focused on removing Iran's potential for nuclear weapons in the short to medium term, and establishing avenues for careful dialogue and engagement in the longer term. Each side knew what the other was after and had prepared the ground for dialogue. (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/10/secret-side-iran-us-relations-since-1979-revolution) They were ready to play the game because they knew what they wanted to win.

Play the game.

Wear the suit (even if you won't wear a tie. After all, Iranians don't.) Stick to message - i.e. if you're going to plead poverty, don't pose for photo-shoots eating lobster and cavorting on a penthouse balcony with your glamorous heiress wife. (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/15/greek-minister-yanis-varoufakis-i-regret-paris-match-photo-shoot) Do go to meetings and actually listen to the other side drone on. Take notes and acknowledge their needs and where they are coming from. (Probably better though not to let the paparazzi photograph your notes reminding yourself "No triumphalism". (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-07/everyone-is-trying-to-decode-this-photo-of-the-greek-s-finance-minister-s-handwritten-notes)) Make it clear what you want, where you can't budge (and why not), and be creative in finding spaces for compromise. In other words, negotiate, don't just play at it.

Don't demonize people from whom you want something.

Did the Greeks really think that publicly calling the Germans Nazis and the International Monetary Fund criminals was going to increase their chances of getting Germany or the IMF to give them more money? In contrast, the Iranians seem to have gone out of their way to be respectful to the United States, a move reciprocated by the Obama Administration. Both sides had to backtrack on years of shrill name-calling ("Axis of Evil", anyone?); and therein lies a lesson for today's radical student leader: tomorrow (or thirty years from now) you might have to negotiate with "the Great Satan" who might not have taken the insult too kindly.

Recognize your limits. And don't (try to) back your opponents into a corner.

Megalomania is a Greek word. And it was amply demonstrated over the last few weeks by the Greek government as it careened from negotiating session to referendum and back into negotiation armed, it thought, with a resounding democratic mandate ("Oxi!") - a proud "No!" to what exactly? Amazingly, Tsipras and his colleagues seem to have thought that 61% of Greeks saying no to an inchoate draft document outlining proposed conditions for fresh borrowing would intimidate the rest of Europe into meekly conceding and handing over the keys to the European Central Bank's printing press. Meanwhile, the leaders of the other 18 democracies in the eurozone considered whether their electorates and parliamentary colleagues would go along with any kind of preferential treatment for Greece, and Angela Merkel, the one European politician you really shouldn't cross or underestimate, (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/12/01/quiet-german) quietly consulted, consolidated alliances and politely waited as Greek banks ran out of money and Tsipras was driven back to the table to sign a deal appreciably more rigorous than the one he had walked away from days previously. In contrast, the United States and its allies in the multilateral negotiation with Iran used the prospect of lifting sanctions in a measured way to entice Iran into dismantling portions of its nuclear program and accepting international inspections.

Keep your enemies close and your friends even closer.

A key tenet of German foreign policy since 1963 has been to walk in lockstep (at least publicly) with France on all major European matters. Post-war German leaders have been acutely aware of the potential backlash if Germany were seen to be pushing its weight as the dominant power in Europe. Cooperation with France (and deeper integration within Europe, more generally) provides cover for the assertion of German interests. This essential principle was closely tested during the recent Greek crisis and there was significant media commentary on the divergence between the German willingness to allow Greece to leave the eurozone and France's insistence at keeping Greece in, even if that meant a hard to implement agreement that was forced upon a reluctant Greek government. While media commentators have been hard on Merkel, I remain impressed by her capacity to thread the needle between, on the one hand, the imperative to maintain public unity with French Socialist President Hollande (who had his own political and economic imperatives for getting a deal) and, on the other hand, her own far more fiscally conservative Finance Minister, Christian Democrat party and a country that abhors debt and is tired of endlessly financing the rest of Europe. (Incidentally, how master-politician Merkel manages and uses Schauble as foil in their good cop/bad cop routine is a revealing contrast to Tsipras's incapacity to contain Varoufakis, both when he was alienating the other Finance Ministers in eurogroup meetings ("I wear the creditors' loathing with pride"), and when he subsequently resigned and voted No to the deal in the Greek parliament.) To be fair, Tsipras seems to have done as good a job as possible in holding his fractious party together in the circumstances, but I wonder why he wouldn't have figured out that the more uncompromising members of his party would vote no, especially after the referendum result had given them a mandate for hardening their position.

By way of contrast, both the United States and Iran did an excellent job in the traditional forte of international diplomacy - building interwoven alliances operating on multiple dimensions of shared interest to encircle an opponent and bringing them to an agreement. The stature of the negotiating parties (the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany) gave international legitimacy and cover all around. Iran was able to call on Russia and China in support of its sovereignty arguments. The United States used its traditional allies (the United Kingdom, France and Germany, as well as the European Union) to buttress non-proliferation objectives. President Obama has carefully alluded to a collateral benefit achieved by engaging Russia in the Iran talks at a time when US-Russia relations are strained over Ukraine. And, perhaps most importantly (although Obama will never get credit for his far-sighted China policy), the United States continues to engage China as a strategic partner, turning what could have been another Cold War type rivalry between superpowers into a much more complex engagement of interdependence and shared interest in managing the global system.

A deal is just a deal. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has mastered the Churchillian glower, the overblown rhetoric and the invective of racism. All that's missing is the cigar. Israel's reflexive allies in the United States seem stuck in the 1930s, accusing Obama of appeasement and of declaring war on Israel by signing a deal with its enemies. In an age of total war and over-the-top political rhetoric, it is especially important to realize that not all agreements are appeasement. As Obama pointed out ironically, you don't sign this kind of agreement with your friends. Diplomacy is not about giving away your fundamental interests. It is about accepting the provisional, recognizing the other parties' autonomy while seeking to constrain it by identifying shared interests and offering incentives for good behaviour, creating the space and conditions for the kind of future scenarios you prefer. It is important to get the timing right. It is vital to verify that your opponent has carried out agreed upon commitments. It is crucial to be realistic. If Angela Merkel and Barack Obama get their way, the deals they have reached will not bring Greeks the same standard of living as Germans or provide Israelis and Americans perfect security against all threats from Iran or its allied non-state actors. But they will be the best deals possible under constrained circumstances. And sometimes that is good enough.

NEWSFLASH: Pope Francis drinks yerba

Vatican City, March 19, 2013 - Newly elected Pope Francis drinks yerba, a preference that has roiled commodity markets worldwide and may lead to renewed conflict in the South Atlantic. Argentina's President Christina Kirschner gave the Pope a traditional yerba gourd and straw when they met earlier this week as a peace-offering for her compatriot and frequent adversary.

According to International Catholic Report's veteran Vatican correspondent, Jon Allan, the Pope eagerly sucked at the straw, breaching centuries of Vatican protocol and scandalizing Monsignor Guido Martini, the Vatican's Master of Liturgical Ceremonies, a traditionalist who has been at logger-heads with the Pope ever since the latter's election. Monsignor Martini attempted to place an elaborate scarlet cape on Francis' shoulders just as he was about to step out onto the balcony to greet the assembled multitudes in St Peter's Square, but the Pope refused, snapping, "Carnival is over, Monsignor!" That rebuke has been widely interpreted by Vatican-watchers as a signal that the end is near.

It is rumoured the Pope's first Encyclical may urge Catholics to eschew the caffeinated consumerist culture of modernity, returning to the simpler poorer communal lifestyle exemplified by yerba, a drink that is traditionally mixed in a dried gourd container and shared silently in a circle. According to Vatileaks, the Encyclical is tentatively titled "Gloriam Yerba" (The Glory of Yerba).

Coffee and tea futures have dropped sharply on world-wide commodity markets in anticipation of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics changing their hot beverage preferences. British diplomats were quick to seize on this development as Argentina's attempt to re-fight the Falklands conflict on a different battlefield.

A grim-looking U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron (whose personal family fortunes were built on the East India tea trade) warned that Britain would not take this latest Argentine affront lightly. "White smoke has billowed not just over the Vatican," Cameron said. "We will fight on the beaches and the tea plantations if need be." Britain has already signalled its determination to retaliate by naming the Duke of Gloucester, a distant cousin of the Queen, to head the British delegation to the Pope's inauguration. As medieval historians and Shakespeare scholars are well aware, this title was previously held by the former Richard III, whose grisly and abominable remains were recently found by scandalized construction workers under a parking lot in Leicester.

Vatican diplomats have denied reports of plans to purchase arms from France and Russia.

The last secret of Fatima

Now that December 21, 2012 has come and gone along with Y2K and the assorted prophecies of Nostradamus, I was starting to wonder if the millennarian fever had broken and the age of apocalypse was safely behind us.

But then the Pope Benedict XVI had to go and resign, bringing out the Malachi-watchers from the woodwork, gleefully reminding us that the next Pope will be “Petrus Romanus”, the last in a series of 116 named with great precision by the Irish seer Malachi in 1139. During Petrus Romanus’s time “the city of seven hills will be destroyed and the dreadful judge will judge his people”.

Speculation is already rampant whether Petrus Romanus is merely a poor dupe or actively abetting the rise of the Antichrist. According to reliable internet sources leading contenders for the title include Cardinal Peter Turkson from Ghana (who, if elected, would be the first black pope since the early days of the Church) or Cardinal Tarcisio Pietro Bertone (born in Romano Cavanese, Italy).

The followers of Malachi (Malachites? Malachians?) include Lutheran pastors, big-bellied TV show hosts from Idaho and other zealots with an alarming enthusiasm for stockpiling assault weapons and ammunition for the end of days. Books called “Petrus Romanus: the Final Pope is Here” are already sold out on amazon.com so hopefully they can get another print run in before it is too late. Authorities such as best-selling author Daymond Duck testify to the Biblical authenticity of this work on sites such as http://www.prophecyofthepopes.com where you can get your own library worth hundreds of dollars for free for a limited time, obviously.

Intriguingly, Malachites intersect with Fatimists, a group of Catholics convinced that successive Popes and senior cardinals have hidden the third (or last) secret prophecy given in the small Portuguese village of Fatima to three little shepherd children on the 13th day of six successive months in 1917 by “a woman brighter than the sun, shedding rays of light clearer and stronger than a crystal ball filled with the most sparkling water and pierced by the burning rays of the sun.”

The apparition (identified as “Our Lady of the Rosary” or the Virgin Mary) gave the children a vision of sinners suffering in hell (the first secret), detailed instructions on the need to convert Russia and the consequences of not doing so - the second world war, the spread of communism and associated global conflicts (the second secret) and a third secret which was so terrible that poor Lucia Santos (the oldest of the three children) could barely endure to write it down thirty years later even as a middle-aged nun at the direct order of her bishop. Immured in a convent, Sister Lucia continued to have visions of the Virgin Mary until her death in 2005 at the age of 97.

According to the Fatimists, Popes John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI (when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation of the Faith) have all had access to the last secret and have responded by either refusing to make it public or playing down its significance because it would be misinterpreted. Indeed, Cardinal Ratzinger has been intimately involved in the Church's decision-making and public communications about the secrets of Fatima since at least 1986. Fatimists hotly dispute the official versions and interpretations released by figures like Cardinals Ratzinger and Bertone and believe the secret has to do with a crisis of religious belief caused by apostasy in the Church at the highest levels. They feel vindicated by Pope Benedict’s pronouncement that the secret of Fatima remains valid because “the greatest persecution of the Church does not come from enemies outside, but arises from sin in the Church.”

It takes a hard-core believer to consider the loss of belief in the Church worse than a world war. So what exactly is this “apostasy”, “persecution”, “sin” that is so terrible? What is a burden so heavy that Pope Benedict would break 600 years of tradition to resign his office?

According to the Washington Post: ‘Standing above the ancient tomb of Saint Peter, Pope Benedict XVI used his final homily as pontiff Wednesday to deliver a blunt reflection on religious hypocrisy... “We can reveal the face of the church and how this face is, at times, disfigured,” the German-born pontiff said, speaking in Italian on an exceedingly rare occasion: a Mass recognized to be the last of a sitting pope. “I am thinking in particular of the sins against the unity of the church, of the divisions in the body of the church.”’

The Italian newspaper La Repubblica claims that the Pope decided to resign on December 17, the day he received a secret report from three cardinals investigating the Vatileaks scandal. The report (2 volumes bound in red, each 300 pages long) describes a Vatican divided into factions, one of whose members are united by their “sexual orientation”. According to the Guardian, the report ‘identified a series of meeting places in and around Rome. They included a villa outside the Italian capital, a sauna in a Rome suburb, a beauty parlour in the centre, and a former university residence that was in use by a provincial Italian archbishop. Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said: "Neither the cardinals' commission nor I will make comments to confirm or deny the things that are said about this matter. Let each one assume his or her own responsibilities. We shall not be following up on the observations that are made about this."’ A resounding non-denial that brought instant credibility to La Repubblica’s story from the world’s press. In the last two days, Scotland's Prelate has been stripped of his position due to allegations of inappropriate behaviour and will not be participating in the Conclave to elect the next (last?) Pope.

It is not exactly a secret that many Catholic priests are gay men. By some estimates, over half the young men in seminaries are homosexual. The Pope ought to know after a lifetime spent in positions of high authority in the Church. Most of his Papacy has been spent apologizing for the sexual abuse of minors perpetrated by priests and condoned by bishops around the world, while defending the Church as an institution and putting the blame for the abuse on a few homosexual priests. There has been no suggestion, yet anyway, that the Pope himself might be subject to public exposure for personal wrongdoing.

As a young boy in a school run by Christian Brothers, I wasn’t sexually abused by priests; however, there was definitely an overtone of sexual release in the pleasure they took in inflicting corporal punishment. Libido will find its way in the subterranean grottos and runnels of the repressed body or the villas and catacombs of Rome.

There must be astute people out there who can explain the status of the Virgin Mary in Catholic theology and the place of nuns and a largely female laity in the all-male, supposedly celibate, hierarchy of the Church. If homosexuality is un-natural, gay marriage is an aberration, and masturbation, contraception and abortion are crimes against life, then presumably the Church should support the flow of sexual energy between men and women. Yet since the early days of the Church, sex has been frowned on and discouraged as an earthly distraction from a focus on purity and preparation for the second coming which unfortunately never seems to happen in the true believer’s lifetime. Yet one must believe and carry on; Mary must carry both archetypes of Virgin and Mother; women must not have carnal appetites, yet must endure sexual intercourse because children (in particular, future priests) must be borne.

If priests stop believing in Mary and find sexual solace in their own flesh, gender and kind, then how will the Church perpetuate itself? Spare a sympathetic thought for the poor old Pope watching his flock and its shepherds fall away and apart from one another. The coming of the Beast would be better than this apocalypse of indifference.

A country of diplomats

Watching a video of a news conference held by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Obama last December, I was struck by Harper's body language.

It is always dangerous to generalize about a country from the behaviour of its leader and Harper is not a particularly cuddly politician at the best of times. Especially in contrast to Obama, philosopher-king, speaking gravely of the great global issues of war and peace, then shifting effortlessly with a twitch of his lip and a twinkle of his eye into sheer mischievous charm, poking fun at all the pomp and ceremony of high office and diplomatic formality while continuing to intone the standard assurances of guarded cordiality.

Yet I think it is true to say that Canada is a country of diplomats - outsiders with good manners, polite, reticent and detached, wary of the powerful oblivious self-absorbed big neighbour, always strategizing and wondering how best to negotiate an uncertain future. In this country, even right-wing politicians are forced to speak both official languages and appear to delight in the festivities of minorities. Digging pay dirt out of a vast capricious wilderness, Canadians seem surprised to survive, not entirely sure how come they thrive.

Class consciousness

I came across this interesting quote from Barack Obama:

“I’ve never believed there are a bunch of people out there who are pulling all the strings and pressing all the buttons. And the reason is that the older I get, the more time I spend meeting people in government or in the corporate arena, the more human everybody becomes. What I do believe is that those with money, those with influence, those with control over how resources are allocated in our society, are very protective of their interests, and they can rationalize infinitely the reasons why they should have more money and power than anyone else, why that’s somehow good for the society as a whole.”

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/05/07/070507fa_fact_macfarquhar#ixzz1U0tuCJYn

Perhaps I am less understanding than Obama; I fret about the extreme protectiveness of their short-term interests the very rich demonstrate around the world, their willingness to risk revolution, epidemics, even environmental catastrophe, through their unwillingness to invest in public goods such as sanitation, public infrastructure, social housing, decent food, drinkable water, clean air... the list goes on and on in places like Brazil, Pakistan, First Nations reserves in Canada (oh yes, even in the Great White North).

But what's even more dispiriting is the enduring false consciousness that makes possible the sanctimonious and self-righteous attitude the very rich in the Third World take towards beggars in the streets; perhaps not all that different than the glowering disregard in affluent countries for 'welfare queens', refugees, gypsies, the homeless. Maybe Marx and Gramsci were right and we really are imprisoned in our class consciousness, incapable of seeing people who don't go to the same country club as having the same rights as us, deserving of our precious tax dollars.

A friend who was caught up in the tsunami in Thailand a few years ago tells the story of a crowd waiting to be evacuated from the disaster zone, most bereft of passport, money, clothing, yet sharing sips of scarce water with each other.  The locals, he says, were especially generous. And then there were a few Westerners who wouldn't share the shirt off their back for someone with acute sunburn.

A rather scary metaphor as we burn together on this afflicted planet.

Rivers and fountains

As I re-publish Genghiz in Love this summer, I am flooded with gratitude for the writers who influenced me at the fertile time when I wrote that novel.

The other day, I wrote a recommendation for Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, which was so strong an influence that I originally named my own novel Anastasia's Slave in allusive tribute to the earlier masterpiece. (Oddly, I first heard about Bulgakov from Salman Rushdie at a book reading for The Satanic Verses, weeks before he was forced to go into hiding.) Reading Bulgakov felt like listening to the subversive sound of triumphant trumpets in some dour government office block; his high-spirited and chivalric ode to the power of the imagination trills through the daily din of deadened words.

Proust was another major influence, I'll write more about that later. Alain de Botton is right, if rather obvious and didactic, in pointing out that reading Proust can change your life. For a period of about 18 months in Prague, I stopped reading anything else besides the Remembrances of Things Past. I'm not sure if I would recommend reading Proust as a cure for heartbreak, but it does work.

When I am immersed in the sheer scope of a great writer's oeuvre, I feel like Huck Finn floating on a raft in the middle of the Mississippi, a great inland sea whose pull is so strong that we mostly consider its vast surface, the distance between its banks, the length it traverses until it meanders into delta, estuary, ocean.

What we often ignore in our bird's eye view of the river's coiled flow is the magnitude of its depth, its murky tides, and at its bottom the porous bed through which its unique minerals and contaminants seep into the groundwater, the collective unconscious of our culture. Proust, Bulgakov, Twain have fed me and countless others, the Duchesse de Guermantes, Professor Woland, Tom Sawyer live and breathe cheerfully within me, giving life to new characters jostling yet to be born.

Hence the futility of the quest for fame, as if a spring could architect itself into a fountain.

Seeing the obvious

I try to see the obvious. Things that are so present in our reality that we can't even see them anymore... which is close to the best definition I've ever seen of the 'unconscious'.

This is not an esoteric insight, necessarily. Here's an example. At lunch today my therapist friend Erin mentioned that almost all of her clients are women. I asked why. She seemed puzzled. The conventional wisdom seems to be that women just are more likely to ask for help, look for support, reach out in times of need. That's just how the gender works - isn't it obvious?

I suggested there might be another explanation - maybe women need more therapy and support because they are actually more in need of therapy and support. In a world where women are disproportionately the target of violence, rape, abuse and systematic discrimination, it makes sense they might actually need help more than men.

Want evidence? Check out the "Trafficking in Persons Report 2011" released by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today. You can find it at http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2011/index.htm

As a man, I'm spending some time these days facing uncomfortable truths about the extent to which I am complicit in a world that is unsafe for my mother, sister, partner, and friends who happen to be women. When I ogle or stare at an attractive stranger, I am turning her into a piece of meat, ripe for re-packaging into a plastic coated dismembered doll - all legs, breasts, and dolled-up face, ready for the soft-porn fashion industry, hard-core online pornography sites, and potentially even for physical slavery and murder. It's a rather obvious feminist insight that we've done our best to ignore as a culture for at least two generations now.

Sadly, the obvious isn't always pretty.