Being willing to talk to your adversaries is a sign of well-grounded diplomacy. JK made some clear statements this week about the importance of diplomacy on a region-wide basis in the Middle East.

Interview with David Gregory on the Today Show: [ transcript | video ]

The fundamental resolution that I’ve heard in every country I’ve been to - I’ve been to Egypt - I met with President Mubarak; I’ve been to Jordan - met with King Abdullah yesterday; we’re here in Syria today; going to Israel from here; I was in Lebanon yesterday - everywhere people are saying, “You’ve got to have a comprehensive political reconciliation process.” And we’re here to explore whether that can be broader than it’s been in the past and we think it can.

[...]

But nothing is going to resolve Iraq without this fundamental political reconciliation. You have a divide between Sunni and Shia. And you have criminal elements. You have ex-Baathist elements. You’ve just got an enormous historical cultural problem. And the only way to overcome it is with major assistance from outside countries and from us to get that political resolution.

[...]

And I’ll tell you, right out here in the Middle East, David, this is more of a tinderbox than a lot of people are focused on.

The Boston Globe article on 12-21-2005:

“He [President Assad] offered some very direct and concrete ways in which they could be helpful in Iraq,” Kerry said in an interview conducted by telephone from Damascus. “I came away with a distinct feeling that there are opportunities here. There are fronts in which we can work together if people are inclined to.”

Kerry said the Assad government is interested in approaching the Iraq war from a regional perspective, where other Middle East issues - including the Israeli Palestinian conflict—are part of the equation.

[...]

“I think you’ve got to talk with people,” Kerry said. “You can disagree with them and disagree with them and disagree with them, and you may not get anywhere, but you’ve got to talk to people.”

Interview with Alex Chadwick on NPR’s Day-To-Day program: [ transcript | audio ]

And the fact is I think there are very real possibilities that Senator Dodd and I will certainly relate to the Administration that we think they can follow up on and they could conceivably elicit some great cooperation. I believe that possibility is real. And I think that they certainly spoke clearly, definitively and specifically about the way they’re prepared to do things with respect to Iraq and how important they think it is that there be a regional-wide effort.

[...]

Ronald Reagan talked to Gorbachev. Richard Nixon sent Kissinger to talk to the Chinese. We need to engage. This is too dangerous a world not to. And …we’re trying to help the administration and I think they will be pleased with today’s discussion, I really do.

As Kerry notes, the diplomatic situation in the Middle East is extremely complex and dynamic. To help you keep up, here are some other related items that will be of interest to those following JK’s travels closely.

— Daniel Levy at the Huffington Post highlights interactions with Syria including the discussion in Israel that resulted from Olmert’s comments on the ISG report, the Syrian offer to meet and the Syrian visit of Senators Kerry and Dodd. He noted, “In Israel, this all set off a heated and almost unprecedented debate on the current state of Israeli-American relations.”

—Time Magazine has a remarkable exclusive report about the Bush Administration’s efforts to “quietly nurtur[e] individuals and parties opposed to the Syrian government in an effort to undermine the regime of President Bashar Assad. Parts of the scheme are outlined in a classified, two-page document which says that the U.S. already is “supporting regular meetings of internal and diaspora Syrian activists” in Europe.”

—Steve Clemons recounts an interesting comment from a UAE official in a meeting he participated in which affirms the message of region-wide diplomacy in the face of thwarting terrorism wherever it appears.

—The Iraq Study Group report: see recommendations 15 and 16 for the Baker-Hamilton Commission’s proposed approach of diplomatic re-engagement.

—The New York Times reference page on Syria

UPDATE: Just uncovered this article from The Nation by a US Special Forces officer, Major Bill Edmonds, who served in Iraq. It affirms on a retail level, the importance of diplomacy and the weakness of a military solution that is not accompanied by a vigorous political and diplomatic effort. With a hat-tip to L.C. Johnson at No Quarter, here is the introduction of a tale that should be required reading.

For just a minute or two, step into my life. I am an American soldier in the Army Special Forces. I have just returned from a one-year tour of duty in Iraq, where I lived, shared meals, slept and fought beside my Iraqi counterpart as we battled insurgents in the center of a thousand-year-old city. I am a conflicted man, and I want you to read the story of that experience as I lived it. In the interest of security, I have omitted some identifying details, but every word is true.