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.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.
OP-ED: "Right Vision, Wrong Policy," by Jim Hoagland, The Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 20-26 November 2006, p. 5.
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!).
I am being serious in this charge. Blaming Rummy for being Rummy or Wolfowitz and Feith for being Neocons is basically a cop-out. Yes, Powell was weak at SECSTATE, but the great balancer then was supposed to be Rice and the great balancer today is supposed to be Rice (her minion runs NSC in her wake). Blaming the strong for the performances of the weak is great commentary if you can get it on TV, but it adds nothing to knowledge.
But in the end, Rice was completely inconsequential. She was perfect for the job at NSC because she wouldn't do anything but coordinate, leaving the Cheney-Rumsfeld axis to dominate, and Bush defers to Cheney on foreign policy.
I know, I know. It's easy to pin it all on Cheney, but it's a good place to start. And it's not that I dislike Cheney's thinking much, because his realism is just realism on speed (he sees the inevitable and wants it done today!). He's the realist who's been mugged and decided that if it takes that long, he'll be an idealist in the short run.
I don't mind Cheney so much. I just wish he hadn't been elected POTUS as far as our foreign policy is concerned.
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's 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.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.
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.
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.
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Comments (3)
There are several key points in the "war" that were tragic mistakes that led to where we are now. It’s as if no one had read “Learning to eat soup with a knife”, “Dereliction of Duty”, and the UK’s and France’s efforts in fighting insurrection. But then, what could they know or contribute from their experiences?
1. Building a coalition with the local neighbors. Hmm, what a novel idea that seems to be resurfacing itself at the end of the process instead of where it belonged – at the beginning. If you’re going to redo the living room shouldn’t you consult with the owner of the house? Pakistan and India were brought on board prior to the invasion of Afghanistan
2. Rumsfeld pushing for a small force without the forethought that boots on the ground would be required to a) protect all of the ammunition dumps, b) seal off the borders, and c) to provide security in phase IV. Where was Gen Franks during this process? Where was the intelligence community? Where was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and his responsability under the Goldwater-Nichols act? Where was oversight from Congress that had previously sought input from the Generals? The entire concept of checks and balances had been systematically eliminated OR the stars just happened to line up. The internal “you’re either with us or against us…. and BTW you’re fired” concept shut down intellectual debate.
3. Feith's failure to provide a comprehensive phase IV plan. A total disaster! The Generals were told to wing it in phase IV. But then we were told that we would be greeted as liberators. The Iraquis actually held off making judgements about us at the beginning and waited for security, water, and electricity to arrive.
4. Bremmer's dissolution of the Iraq Army which got rid of a force that could have been the nucleus of a rebuilding effort and instead formed the nucleus of an insurgency. This act provided a lot of unhappy former military personnel without a paycheck. Who controlled Bremmer?
5. Bremmer's de-Baathification order and the elimination of the governmental infrastructure. Instead of Bremer purging the top leadership (in cases, 4 & 5), eliminating the Baath party provided additional membership to the insurgency. This created more unhappy people without a paycheck. Again, who controlled Bremmer?
According to what I have read, President Regan was not necessarily intellectually involved in many of the processes surrounding his presidency. However, he allowed the process to take place instead of shutting it down. Schultz and Weinberg were constantly in disagreement with each other. Likewise for President Clinton, who was very involved in the process and wanted to hear from multiple sides. However, some of his decisions didn’t help the military while he was in office. In my mind, the lack of intellectual process with the President making the final decision was the greatest failure in the Iraq war debacle. It appears that decisions were preordained by Cheeny, Rumsfeld and Bush.
Is it all Condi’s fault? Ultimately, as in any corporate structure, a good CEO has to take full responsibility, keep tabs on progress and the goals, and have the forsight to reorganize his delegation of responsibility before the walls fall down.
Posted by Steve Skalski | November 27, 2006 9:31 PM
Did Dubya diagnose "a crumbling order in the Middle East," or was his genius simply in saying that we had to do something different, after 50 years of bribes to Israel and Egypt had led to child suicide bombers, greater carnage than ever, and the costly "no fly zone." I think he instinctively has contempt for the part played by America in all very recent history--rather correctly. Why should we look for John Kerry's "world view" when we have furnished Europe's military shield since WWII, and Japan's, and when what Germany and France, (et al.,) really want is to send in (or withhold) OUR military. Bush 43 has wrought a revolution in US foreign policy, not least including the "outing" of the kleptocracy on Turtle Bay. If he had done nothing else, his exposure of the UN should win him pludits. He has firmly identified the UN in the public mind as a den of thieves, and no amount of sugar-coating can restore its former glory, thank god. But essentially, he is the quintessence of a man in the street who loves his family and pays his taxes and wonders why in the hell his government has been so stupid in foreign affairs... He is obviously doing a great job, because the liberals hate him more than they hated Reagan.
Posted by Larry Hughes | November 27, 2006 11:59 PM
"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."
No you don't. You place it on the Prersident and the Congress. It is the President and the Congress who give the DoD collossal resources for planning and policy development, and keep the DoS on such a shoestring that they have no spare resources for anything but managing the day-to-day problems before them.
"Rice ran NSC through the disastrous "lost year" following the invasion's successful conclusion (when Saddam's regime fell)."
Which of course means that the invasion wasn't successful at all.
"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."
The U.S. government is interested in military subcontractors, minions, and bullet-sponges. Not allies. Allies have to be given input into policy, which is the last thing Dubya wants. Don't blame Condi for the fact that "allies" aren't lining up for that role.
"Rice was in charge of the interagency process when it could make or break our effort. And it was broken on her watch."
No, the interagency process has never really existed, because only the DoD has the resources to play in the interagency game. And it isn't Condi who writes the checks, its the Congress.
Posted by RKKA | November 28, 2006 9:57 AM