In the End, Every President Talks to the Bad Guys

Has the United States mishandled such situations in the past?

Sure. Just look at the way Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush handled Saddam Hussein in the 1980s and early '90s. They exaggerated the threat from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's Iran and saw neighboring Iraq as the only counterweight to the mullahs. So they courted Hussein and coddled him with arms, intelligence and smiling visits from eminences such as Donald H. Rumsfeld. Not surprisingly, Hussein came to believe Washington would let him get away with virtually anything -- including gassing his own Kurdish citizens in 1988 and invading Kuwait in 1990.

Is everyone in an evil regime equally villainous?

No. Not all bad guys are equally bad. Moreover, the interests of different factions inside a regime differ from one another, and it's often possible to split some off from the others. The British understood the divide-and-conquer strategy, and it usually works. We should be exploring this sort of approach now with Iran and Hamas.

So what should Americans expect from deals with devils?

Alas, nothing much when it comes to improving the nature of their nasty regimes or their treatment of their own citizens. But U.S. leaders should still regularly raise the plight of the victims, publicly and privately, and play for long-run changes. On the other hand, bad guys have shown a willingness to compromise on political and security questions -- the areas upon which Washington should focus.

And even when a deal is made, don't assume they'll keep their word.

Does this all mean that we should just talk to every devil, no matter how evil?