Jaw-Jaw

We talked to them quite a bit in the 80's - we'll likely do so again:

Six years after the September 11 attacks, a few cautious voices are beginning to suggest the unthinkable -- maybe it is time to consider talking to al Qaeda.

The idea will revolt some people and raises obvious questions -- through what channels could such a dialogue take place and what would there be to negotiate?

But proponents say al Qaeda has established itself as a de facto power, whether the West likes it or not, and history shows militant movements are best neutralized by negotiation, not war.

"No insurgency or terrorism has been defeated by warfare or violence," former Anglican church envoy and hostage negotiator Terry Waite said in a debate on BBC World television.

"There are some rational players in al Qaeda but it also attracts the psychotic. We need to seek an entry point," said the Briton, himself a captive in Lebanon from 1987 to 1991.

Jan Egeland, a Norwegian who helped broker secret talks between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation in the 1990s and later, as a top U.N. official, dealt with warlords and guerrilla leaders from Colombia to Uganda, told Reuters: "I wouldn't rule out speaking to anybody, a priori."

He went on: "It depends on who you speak to, but also what you speak to them about. I'm willing to speak to the devil to help the victims in the depths of hell. If I could have a meeting with al Qaeda where one could impress upon them that they are the biggest anti-Islamic force around, why not?"

But Egeland and others point out there are huge obstacles to negotiating with al Qaeda, even if Western governments could overcome their revulsion towards it.

Unlike, say, Colombia's FARC rebels, the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland or the Afghan Taliban, to whom President Hamid Karzai renewed an offer of talks this week, al Qaeda is not so much an organization as an idea.

Its vision -- to create a global Muslim caliphate and convert even the United States to Islam, as its leader Osama bin Laden urged in a video last week -- is a dream that is not confined within national boundaries and leaves no room for compromise, or even realistic discussion.

"Al Qaeda is a universal movement and its demand is universal. It cannot be met by one single government. They're talking about the whole Islamic world from Chechnya to Yemen," said Mustafa Alani, security analyst at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai.

Some experts use the terms 'tactical terrorism' and 'strategic terrorism' to differentiate between traditional militant groups, typically fighting for negotiable demands such as political representation or independence, and those like al Qaeda for which perpetual struggle appears an end in itself.

"It's an endless struggle. The principle of jihad will not accept half-solutions. Either you are in the black or in the white. There is no middle ground. You are either a kafir (infidel) or you are a jihadi," said Alani.

..."One likely scenario with al Qaeda is that they will indeed become increasingly unpopular in the Muslim world and they will split and there will be back channels (of negotiation) to various of their networks," he said.

"That will be done by religious groups, by Muslim groups working with smaller actors, smaller countries. Middle Eastern countries, perhaps radical countries will be involved, that's the new way of diplomacy. It's not going to be the European Union or the U.S. doing it."