Daisy Shah Quotes

In 1980 Russian troops moved into Afghanistan, and President Jimmy Carter imposed an American grain export embargo against Russia:

During the 1860 Republican nominating convention, following the custom of the time, neither Lincoln or the odds on favorite, William H. Seward, were even in Chicago. Lincoln's campaign managers wired him regarding a possible deal with Simon Cameron to obtain the votes of the Pennsylvania delegation:. Lincoln's managers were incredulous. Without bargains there was no way Lincoln stood a chance. They decided that Lincoln didn't really mean what he had said but was only "covering himself" for the record. They proceeded to deal with Cameron as well as trade for most of the prospective cabinet and some Federal judgeships as well. Lincoln won and honored all the bargains when he became president.

This position is a classical example of what some call a “hard line” negotiation stance. It argues that the enemy will never agree to anything that would be reasonable or acceptable to you UNTIL he has given up all hope of getting everything he wants. So this approach says there is no point in even discussing or negotiating anything until the military and economic and diplomatic situation is such that the other side has no hope of winning all it wants. In the case of the Arab Israeli dispute, for 50 years the Arabs believed that they would defeat the Israelis and push them out of the Middle East. For almost 50 years they would not even sit at the same table and negotiate anything. After starting and losing several wars, and falling further and further behind, the moderates began to be reasonable and hinted that they would accept Israel’s right to exist. However, there are some Israelis who argue as Jabotinsky did that there should be no discussions at this time until Hamas and all the terrorist groups have either given up or have been disarmed. This sort of hard line has rarely led to peace—especially if there are hard liners on both sides. They say never negotiate when you are weak. However if you are strong, there is no imperative to negotiate.

This is an interesting historical quotation because it shows the role of the Queen in the English Government at the middle of the 19th century. What the quotation shows is that the drafts of significant foreign policies were sent to the young 29 year old Queen for approval. However, her review was not perfunctory, In {630732} it showed how she analyzed proposed policies and pointed out flaws and shortcomings. In this quotation she not only criticized a part of the draft policy but actually wrote her own copy to be included. War was then raging in Lombardy between the Austrians under Marshal Radetzky and the Piedmontese under the King of Sardinia and she believed the Palmerston draft did not do enough to make the Austrians see England as an objective party. And she wanted to be much more proactive and have the British Foreign Ministry mediate the conflict. This would be like a President of the United States taking a draft of a foreign policy from the State Department, instead of either approving or disapproving it, redrafts it to add some additional elements and make the language more comfortable for the parties. And she did this when by U. S. standards she was not old enough to even run for Congress. (And women in the United Kingdom could not even vote.) Note that the formality of the time required that the Queen refer to herself in the third person and not the first.