Answers
Suzanne Nossel, a former U.N. functionary in the Clinton Administration and a blogger at Democracy Arsenal, has been guesting at Daniel Drezner, who apparently has the perverse notion that, when you go on vacation, you should give your housekeys to someone who lies awake at night with fantasies of breaking all your china.
She's posted "a series of questions on foreign policy." Normally, I would flee questions from an attorney unless they're tacked to a subpoena. No doubt these are riddled with "gotcha" tiger traps invisible to an ink-stained wretch like me. I don't know nothin' about oyerin' no terminers.
But there's just nothing inspiring me in the news cycle these days. Even picking up the loony chatter of some of my newsroom colleagues is leaving a tawdry taste in my mouth. Besides, I'm not the target Nossel's after. She's luring "conservatives." I've been accused on some sites of being part of "the right-wing noise machine," but I have never called myself a conservative. It doesn't fit me, and I have too much respect for many of the people who use it honestly.
But for all I know, I might fit her definition of one. I did vote with the conservatives in the last presidential election, and foreign policy was the reason. So maybe what I think might be of interest to her. Her questions in italics; my answer otherwise.
2. Do you really think we can make the UN further U.S. interests by criticizing and beating down the organization? No, if you're talking about the U.N. is it is now. Neither can we make it further U.S. interests by pouring honey all over it. I see it as a broken bureaucracy, built to function in a world that doesn't exist anymore.
[I don't have to answer "so what would you replace it with" because you didn't ask that.]
Do you believe that John Bolton’s style will enable him to actually accomplish things, or is it more a matter of his standing in the way of the UN doing wrong? I think it would be the equivalent of sending Rodney Dangerfield to a snooty college, but then that was an appealing movie on a lot of levels.
But 99 percent of the U.N. bureaucrats still will be there when Bush leaves office and a new ambassador is named, and the bureaucrats know that. That's the trouble with bureaucracies. If this approach had been tried during Bush's first administration, it might have shaken things out. Besides, in an institution allegedly rife with sexual harrassment in the office and outright rape in the field, I doubt his management style, however plutonic, would be all that conspicuous.
4. What do you really think of the failure to find WMD in Iraq? I'm delighted. Now I know what I never would have known otherwise; that Saddam was bluffing. For all my doubts about it, the system worked. But I also know that the system that kept Saddam from having such an arsenal was tragically costly to his people, and it was eroding due in part to the de facto defection of some of the very governments that opposed the American-led war to overthrow him.
Do you believe that the Administration was genuinely as surprised as the American people were? Yes, I actually do. Does this make you question intelligence assessments on other matters like North Korea and Iran; why or why not? Apples and oranges. What our intelligence is telling us about Iran and North Korea is not much different from what those countries themselves (or their monitoring overseers) are telling us. Not to the degree it was in the case of Iraq.
6. Do you believe that development aid is important in its own right, or do you see it more as something the U.S is compelled to do for image reasons, much of which winds up being wasteful? It is important in its own right. We have that obligation. A moral obligation. We also have an obligation to spend it with forethought in ways that will genuinely help people, not just present us to the world as big donors.
At the same time, we ought to take the necessary pains to let people know where the aid comes from. If it is re-packaged along the way as U.N. aid, or aid from some group that is hostile to American ways, that is not an honest use of the money we've spent. To say our aid should not be driven by political considerations is not the same as saying we ought to take no cognizance of its effect on them.
How important is the Millennium Challenge Account, in your view? The rhetoric is appealing, but I confess I know too little of the mechanisms, or the coded speech that tends to be used in such matters, to judge whether it is a valuable idea or just a lot of blown smoke.
8. How worried are you about China? It certainly will be our great rival in the world when my son is my age. Competition between us and them is inevitable, but I hope it can be kept relatively friendly. India will be our great friend in decades to come. Vietnam will play a role. Our alliances with Singapore and Australia will grow in importance. What about in the long-term? I tend to think of these things in the long term.
10. What to you is most problematic about the Bush Administration’s foreign policy? I'm not sure you mean "problematic," as in "hard to solve or deal with." Maybe you mean "what is the biggest problem with the Bush Administration's foreign policy." Which I might say is the feuding between State and the Pentagon.
But if you do mean "problematic," I'd say it's the ability of this administration to function in a domestic setting that calls for certain extensions of American hard power, in a world that is highly fearful of that power, in a system of world institutions that are hostile to American interests. If there’s one thing you don’t like, what is it? The failure to really explain ourselves to much of the world.
She's posted "a series of questions on foreign policy." Normally, I would flee questions from an attorney unless they're tacked to a subpoena. No doubt these are riddled with "gotcha" tiger traps invisible to an ink-stained wretch like me. I don't know nothin' about oyerin' no terminers.
But there's just nothing inspiring me in the news cycle these days. Even picking up the loony chatter of some of my newsroom colleagues is leaving a tawdry taste in my mouth. Besides, I'm not the target Nossel's after. She's luring "conservatives." I've been accused on some sites of being part of "the right-wing noise machine," but I have never called myself a conservative. It doesn't fit me, and I have too much respect for many of the people who use it honestly.
But for all I know, I might fit her definition of one. I did vote with the conservatives in the last presidential election, and foreign policy was the reason. So maybe what I think might be of interest to her. Her questions in italics; my answer otherwise.
1. Does the rise in anti-Americanism concern you? Yes, but not to the point that I think we need to slam on the brakes and do something-anything to make it go away.
If so, do you link it to the Bush Administration’s policies? No, not policies. I think essentially the same policies could have been executed more artfully without causing quite this level of America-hatred. The style, as much as the substance, is what got us here. The administration seems to not know, or care, how we're perceived.
On the other hand, I suspect that "style" difference is a matter of percentage points. A lot of the present bumper crop of America-haters, at least in Europe and the Middle East, were going to take to the streets and denounce us no matter what we did after 9/11 -- unless it was "bomb Israel," or "curl up and die."
Even if you don’t think it’s a major issue that should be guiding policy choices, do you think it matters at the margins and can make it tougher to build support for U.S. goals? Oh, certainly, it hurts. But that's a double-edged sword. A U.S. that is too solicitous of world opinion has problems, too.
Picture this: we're gunning for Rogue Dictator X and seeking allies among his neighbors. The U.S. that can be tipped by world opinion might have a harder time attracting supporters than the U.S. that everyone knows is going to ride roughshod over Rogue Dictator X and finish him off even if France and Libya yowl about it.
2. Do you really think we can make the UN further U.S. interests by criticizing and beating down the organization? No, if you're talking about the U.N. is it is now. Neither can we make it further U.S. interests by pouring honey all over it. I see it as a broken bureaucracy, built to function in a world that doesn't exist anymore.
[I don't have to answer "so what would you replace it with" because you didn't ask that.]
Do you believe that John Bolton’s style will enable him to actually accomplish things, or is it more a matter of his standing in the way of the UN doing wrong? I think it would be the equivalent of sending Rodney Dangerfield to a snooty college, but then that was an appealing movie on a lot of levels.
But 99 percent of the U.N. bureaucrats still will be there when Bush leaves office and a new ambassador is named, and the bureaucrats know that. That's the trouble with bureaucracies. If this approach had been tried during Bush's first administration, it might have shaken things out. Besides, in an institution allegedly rife with sexual harrassment in the office and outright rape in the field, I doubt his management style, however plutonic, would be all that conspicuous.
3. Do you believe that in order to effectively promote goals like democratization and human rights around the world, the U.S. must itself be seen as an exemplar of these values? Yes! I believe we need atleast to do better than our opponents, and do the best we can in all these things. That ought to be a national mission. I recently quoted George Kennan, writing at the start of the Cold war:
Much depends on health and vigor of our own society. World communism is like malignant parasite which feeds only on diseased tissue. This is point at which domestic and foreign policies meet. Every courageous and incisive measure to solve internal problems of our own society, to improve self-confidence, discipline, morale and community spirit of our own people, is a diplomatic victory over Moscow worth a thousand diplomatic notes and joint communiqués.
Great advances in civil rights were made in the wake of the Revolution and World War I and during the Civil War and the Cold War for exactly this reason. Principled wars are one of the major engines of progress in America, which is one reason it depresses me to see the progressives so utterly reject this one. If you want to hold Bush's feet to the fire of his own rhetoric, don't reject it as soon as it's out of his mouth.
Then you're just another hypocrite. And the true measure of how "exemplary" we are never will come from our enemies. Nor will it come from that segment of the American "left" that has spent its adult life utterly fixated on everything wrong with the American experience, and Western traditions in general.
Do you believe that our status as a standard-bearer of justice and liberty is so well-entrenched that revelations like the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo won’t negatively affect it? They are both a bleeding wound, and a chance to get stronger. If we manage to let the world know that we've dealt with these things in an open manner, and that they are aberrations we do not tolerate, we could emerge stronger.
But that management will require two things: 1. that the "dealing with it" actually happens, 2. that the reflexive critics of everything Bush/America/military shut their yaps enough and cool down their brains to figure out that this has happened, and then to say so fearlessly.
4. What do you really think of the failure to find WMD in Iraq? I'm delighted. Now I know what I never would have known otherwise; that Saddam was bluffing. For all my doubts about it, the system worked. But I also know that the system that kept Saddam from having such an arsenal was tragically costly to his people, and it was eroding due in part to the de facto defection of some of the very governments that opposed the American-led war to overthrow him.
Do you believe that the Administration was genuinely as surprised as the American people were? Yes, I actually do. Does this make you question intelligence assessments on other matters like North Korea and Iran; why or why not? Apples and oranges. What our intelligence is telling us about Iran and North Korea is not much different from what those countries themselves (or their monitoring overseers) are telling us. Not to the degree it was in the case of Iraq.
5. Do you believe that an international criminal court would be likely to indict U.S. servicemembers for war crimes, notwithstanding the provision that when countries are capable of investigating and prosecuting crimes in their own court systems, an international court will not have jurisdiction?
It's the camel's nose in your tent, once you submit to it. Look, you're a lawyer, you know there are dozens of ways an unscrupulous party can "get" somebody in even a well-designed system of laws (and I have no reason to expect this one would be). When I live in a world where world governing bodies vent as loudly about Taliban breaches of Geneva Accords as they do about alleged U.S. transgressions, I'll think the time has come for an international criminal court.
But and as long as so many of the important players in the world court movement don't even attempt to disguise their burning desire to use international institutions solely to hamstring American power, I see no advantage in submitting to their rules. The problem is not the rule of law; the problem is the intent of the authors of the law. Even Saddam's Iraq had laws.
Is this a real fear, or a stand-in for a broader concern over the impact of an international criminal justice system? I'd call it a specific example of that concern, not a stand-in for it. I've written recently about the ICRC, which seems to me a good example of the U.S. being treated in the international system the way certain minorities tend to be treated in the U.S. criminal justice system.
6. Do you believe that development aid is important in its own right, or do you see it more as something the U.S is compelled to do for image reasons, much of which winds up being wasteful? It is important in its own right. We have that obligation. A moral obligation. We also have an obligation to spend it with forethought in ways that will genuinely help people, not just present us to the world as big donors.
At the same time, we ought to take the necessary pains to let people know where the aid comes from. If it is re-packaged along the way as U.N. aid, or aid from some group that is hostile to American ways, that is not an honest use of the money we've spent. To say our aid should not be driven by political considerations is not the same as saying we ought to take no cognizance of its effect on them.
How important is the Millennium Challenge Account, in your view? The rhetoric is appealing, but I confess I know too little of the mechanisms, or the coded speech that tends to be used in such matters, to judge whether it is a valuable idea or just a lot of blown smoke.
7. How important is intelligence reform? Important. Is this a real priority, or more a political exigency driven by the 9/11 and Silberman-Robb reports? Real priority. As the profile of those reports fades, is intelligence reform likely to recede as an issue? Likely to recede.
8. How worried are you about China? It certainly will be our great rival in the world when my son is my age. Competition between us and them is inevitable, but I hope it can be kept relatively friendly. India will be our great friend in decades to come. Vietnam will play a role. Our alliances with Singapore and Australia will grow in importance. What about in the long-term? I tend to think of these things in the long term.
9. How worried are you about the sagging dollar and yawning balance of payments deficit? I hope I live long enough to be able to afford to visit Europe again. I think the deficits are going to be a problem, but we can overcome them.
10. What to you is most problematic about the Bush Administration’s foreign policy? I'm not sure you mean "problematic," as in "hard to solve or deal with." Maybe you mean "what is the biggest problem with the Bush Administration's foreign policy." Which I might say is the feuding between State and the Pentagon.
But if you do mean "problematic," I'd say it's the ability of this administration to function in a domestic setting that calls for certain extensions of American hard power, in a world that is highly fearful of that power, in a system of world institutions that are hostile to American interests. If there’s one thing you don’t like, what is it? The failure to really explain ourselves to much of the world.
