Bazaar advice

In his column yesterday, Thomas Friedman wrote:

Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, compares it to bargaining for a Persian carpet in Tehran. “When you go inside the carpet shop, the first thing you are supposed to do is feign disinterest,” he explains. “The last thing you want to suggest is ‘We are not leaving without that carpet.’ ‘Well,’ the dealer will say, ‘if you feel so strongly about it …’ ”

The other lesson from the carpet bazaar, says Sadjadpour, “is that there is never a price tag on any carpet. The dealer is not looking for a fixed price, but the highest price he can get — and the Iran price is constantly fluctuating depending on the price of oil.” Let’s now use that to our advantage.

This is from an expert who has been writing for the past eight years that we “know” what Israel will need to concede to achieve peace with the Palestinians. He also advocates every single forum to pressure Israel to make those concessions. The advice he quotes would also makes sense regarding Israel, I doubt that he’d ever see that.

By stressing the importance of peace for Israel, peace processors of all disciplines show great interest. That, of course, raises the cost of peace. (It encourages the Palestinians and other Arabs to demand more concessions from Israel.)

If anything Eric Trager understands this much better than Friedman:

For this reason, the winner of next week’s presidential election would be well advised to renounce Annapolis as soon as possible. The incoming president should announce a freeze on U.S. involvement in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking until both parties’ domestic political situations are resolved. Without this declaration, Israel and the Palestinians will have every reason to believe that the next U.S. administration will follow along the lines of Annapolis–and thus every reason to sideline American proposals indefinitely.

If the winner is Barack Obama, don’t count on it.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.