What the Realists lost in Iraq, the Realists can fix
Barnett
SPECIAL REPORT: "Who Lost Iraq? Success Has Many Fathers. The Mess in Baghdad Has a Lot More," by Chitra Ragavan, U.S. News & World Report, 27 November 2006, p. 38.
OP-ED: "Right Vision, Wrong Policy," by Jim Hoagland, The Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 20-26 November 2006, p. 5.
The U.S. News report is a great one, and the star of the piece is who it should be: Condi Rice. She is essentially identified as the weak link in the process, but for the wrong reasons.
Rice is said to be too close to Bush. Granted.
Rice is said to have been too much in favor of the war so as to abdicate her "impartial broker" role. Bullshit.
Again, we see the problem of calling everything "the war."
Rice's support for the war wasn't the problem. It just reflected her general inability to think outside her boss' box.
The real problem with Rice is that she came from the Brent Scowcroft school of realism and national security advising. After Iran-Contra, the Brent Scowcroft school of national security advising came into vogue: the national security adviser and the NSC staff became super-apolitical. Instead of being the government-wide advocator of national security policy and an active player in its own right, the NSC and its boss became foreign policy super-clerk to the president, the main job being protecting POTUS's ass from any blame.
This is essentially the Scowcroft model, and it reflected his realist take on things: no advocacy and no idealism from the NSC. It doesn't lead, it merely coordinates.
That became the preferred mode post-Iran-Contra, and it survived the Bush 41 administration nicely, segueing into the emasculated NSC of the Clinton years, when the NEC (national economic council) was actually more powerful because Rubin at Treasury topped any of the unmemorables at Defense.
When Rice came in with George, the NSC embraced the Scowcroft "we're-just-here-on-background" model. The staff I interacted with were all the same. I called them the "Joe Fridays." They'd come, they'd take notes, and that was it. They had no ideology to speak of. They were responsible for nothing. They just coordinated.
We won in Iraq--the war, that is.
What we continue to lose in Iraq in the peace. That loss occurs primarily because we're under-allied and under-coordinated interagency-wise. You place that blame on State and NSC. Rice ran NSC through the disastrous "lost year" following the invasion's successful conclusion (when Saddam's regime fell). Rice has been in charge of State for the last two years, during which our under-allied approach has proven quite isolating for us and quite invigorating for the insurgency and now sectarian warriors.
How so?
A big allied presence says to all, "This thing is happening. It's inevitable. Get used to it."
A narrow, U.S.-heavy presence says, "Just kill enough people and especially American troops to drive off the weak-willed U.S. Government."
Rice was in charge of the interagency process when it could make or break our effort. And it was broken on her watch.
Rice has been in charge (following perhaps the biggest do-nothing SECSTATE we've ever had in Colin Powell) of State and the alliance process during the past two years and all we've got to show for it is this unimaginative strategy of trying to isolate Iran--that's it. We're losing allies, adding no new ones, and picking new fights and bolstering old enemies in the very region we're now--out of desperation and incompetence in our nation-building effort in Iraq--trying to stabilize.
And more than anyone else in this administration we've got Rice and her minimalistic take on her jobs to thank for this mess. Just-the-facts-ma'am at NSC followed by talking-points diplomacy and (gasp!) yet another axis of evil member to isolate and contain (Why not take such a realist tack? Look what the original Realist approach on Iraq has gotten us over the years: build him up vis-a-vis Iran, then kick him out of Kuwait but don't finish the job so we can isolate him with no-flies and sanctions, only to finally go in again and get stuck with a mess that--of course--only the Realists can save us from today!
The Realist school of limited regrets is what got us the Middle East we have today, and their solution will be to simply recreate the same dynamics that worked so well in the past: Sunni dictators + isolate Iran + push for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Gosh, that's all worked so well in the past that I'm sure it'll do the trick this time.
I love Hoagland acerbic take on it all:
History's seemingly unlimited store of irony now makes Bush 43 the evident instrument of the resurgence of the "realist" school of foreign policy so beloved of Bush 41 and so regularly scorned by this president--until he turned to it for salvation in Iraq and elsewhere.
Many will revel in this turn, and there is rough familial justice at work: Only the incompetence and discord of the past three years could cause reasonable people to welcome back with applause policymakers who failed to anticipate and then opposed the breakup of the Soviet Union; who were not realistic enough to see, much less prevent, the Balkans from plunging into flames; and who 'coddled dictators from Beijing to Baghdad," as the Democrats once accurately described the handiwork of Brent Scowcroft, Bob Gates and Jim Baker under Bush 41.
So hold the champagne and cheers for the return of "realism," a word that has even less meaning than most of the labels that politicians, journalists and academics attach to schools of foreign policy. It is too often a euphemism for cynicism, for playing for time and for passing up big opportunities that carry high risks and potentially great rewards. Bush 43 took such a risk in Iraq and now pays the price for failing to develop anything resembling a Plan B.
Oh no, we have a Plan B. It's called try-the-same-WMD-track-with-Iran. This is Condi Rice's big accomplishment as SECSTATE and it rivals her incompetence as national security adviser.
Rice is Scowcroft's protegee all right and she's got his lack of strategic imagination down pat.
But the good news is that what Baker and Hamilton will likely offer should fit the bill rather nicely. According to Hoagland:
Baker-Hamilton will certainly recommend that the United States urgently develop the regional and international structures to guide change that Bush has neglected, and the president must act on that advice.
But here's where Hoagland really nails it:
But Bush's going on the defensive does not mean that the radical positive changes he had hoped for cannot come about on their own, even if on a different timetable and with much greater costs than he ever imagined. True realism lies in recognizing that his diagnosis of a crumbling order in the Middle East was sound, even if his prescriptions were not.
I would just amend the last sentence to read, "even if his execution was not."
And again, for that we have the great protege of the uber-realist most to thank.
Realism is just idealism stretched over time. In the end, Bush will be judged as a very realistic president, just one surrounded by weak talent. thomaspmbarnett.com |
