Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

Tom received the following email:

At the 11th hour the US government presented IAEA a set of fabricated intelligence that US agencies have already dismissed as not credible evidence of Iranian military nuclear application.

This is not a convoluted topic and can be easily discredited. Why no one in the US media investigates the issue of lying to the international bodies and the American people.

We ALWAYS have to pay the piper for our deeds. We are paying it in Iraq with the blood of our sons and daughters and we will pay it in dealing with Iran.

As much as we are all itching to beat the s... out of Iranians we will not control the outcome.

Can you confront our government before it is too late.

Tom replied:

Already done on many fronts and in many venues. Still ongoing.

You're living on tiny scraps of reality. Relax. Many people working the case at all levels.

I will say that right now, things look decently contained. What makes it into the press is mostly complaints. Winners don't need to brag.

If you want serious access (I have no idea of your background), then you need to dial down the tone. Appearing like you're losing it only isolates you. Friction without purpose is bad. Too much hassle for people seriously working issues to be associated with.

I advise this only because you seem to be someone who should be aiming
higher, and because this tone of powerlessness is bad mental health.

The writer replied:

I really appreciate the sincerity and value of your advice to me. That is very generous of you and I will build on your suggestions. Thanks.

Tom concluded:

Sometimes, you talk them down.

You know, I get more emails like this than I can count. A lot of people out there convinced they are completely powerless in this world and that we're being sucked into wars with no forethought. It's a sad commentary on where we are right now as a nation that average citizens are so distrustful of their government, believing that it suppresses intelligence or doctors it, sensing that debates are being squelched or hidden from public view when they shouldn't be--just a strong sense of betrayal.

As somebody who's worked all over the national security community over the past 18 years, meeting more people than I can remember, I know there tends to be wings and factions on every issue, and that, under normal conditions, they duke it out in the best interest of the country. Average citizens tend to see too many movies and not read enough material that accurately describes the day-to-day workings of things, so their images of decision-making tend to be very dark and nefarious. Nixon's administration had created a lot of that bad feeling--that sense of hopelessness. It's sad to see people feeling this way again. It's depressing.

I watched "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" last weekend with my kids on Blu Ray (not an unreal pix, but basically as good as watching it originally in theaters back in 1977 or whenever it was) and I realized that one of the reasons why I liked that film so much was that it showed the U.S. Government in a benevolent light. Of course, it's secretive under those conditions, but the movie showed this vast collection of people (contractors included, which I'm sure tickled pink the various companies who got their logos in view like Lockheed) all working together to try and do this decent thing under these very strange conditions. Hardly perfect in execution, but everybody trying hard to do the right thing. Of course, the notion that you'd keep something like that secret for any length of following time is utterly fantastic, because you get that many people together and somebody always talks. But still, I liked the image of a caring government trying to do the right thing.

This guy, who wrote this email to me maybe a month ago, no longer sees that caring government. Instead he sees something that frightens him to the point of writing fairly anguished letters to somebody he's never met on the off-chance this person would listen to him and perhaps address his fears directly.

I've been arguing for a soft-kill approach on Iraq since I took the question over breakfast from some USAF officers at Maxwell in Alabama the day after Bush's reelection. That's why I wrote the second "Mr. President" article in Esquire. I wanted Bush to come back to earth in his second term and restore some of the faith in government that his first term seemed to have in great abundance but then started dissipating in postwar Iraq (where, if he had maintained it by making sure we followed through there, he goes down as perhaps one of our best presidents). But we didn't get that response in the second term. Instead we got the re-direct on Iran over nukes and a lot of people got this sick feeling in their stomachs that Bush and Co. had simply stopped listening on this score.

And I think a lot of Americans find that situation very frightening still.

The next president, whatever they do, is going to have to keep the American public informed and on board to a much greater degree.

You get as many emails as I do like this--from all political stripes--and you realize there is a profound mismatch between our current perceived/actual grand strategy and what most Americans would be comfortable with. You address that mismatch or you sap the moral vigor of the nation in dangerous ways, especially within the context of an economic downturn.

We simply need to do better in the national security community. We provide few images of hope and so many images of fear. The reason why I tend to profile government officials and military officers in such a positive light is that I feel that's not done enough to maintain people's morale and faith in their political system. Instead, we tend to focus so much on corruption and people's weaknesses. It is a dangerous trend all right. We need average people to feel more pride again in America's foreign policy--not just at home but abroad as well. The quotient of conspiracy thinking out there right now is frighteningly high. It is the sign of a sick polity.