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May 21,
2003
The Fatuous
Defense Cabal
Newt, Rumsfeld
and Wolfowitz
By BRIAN CLOUGHLEY
There should be a shake-up in the manner Washington
handles foreign policy. The first thing that should happen is
official barring of Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz from commenting on
matters other than defence in its most confined definition
Bush has almost achieved his objective
of rendering internationalism inoperative. There is rejoicing
in much of Washington that international cooperation on other
than solely US terms is to all intents non-existent and that
bilateralism and fatuously-titled "coalitions" are
the only foreign relations' engagement routes he is prepared
to take. Inevitably his foreign policy is in a condition of pandemic
flux, but this is not the fault of the State Department's professional
diplomats who have to interpret as best they can the lurches
and non-sequiturs of the Bush administration in its erratic but
determined pursuit of world domination.
In the next edition of Foreign Policy
magazine (July), Newt Gingrich, disgraced former Speaker of the
US House of Representatives (yet still a member of the Pentagon's
Defence Policy Board), will regale the world with some novel
reasons for America's failures in promoting its interests abroad.
At least he admits there are problems, but his identification
of the virus contaminating US dealings with foreign countries
is barely credible.
Gingrich is yet another war-hawk who
avoided service in Vietnam (the Defence Policy Board, reporting
to Rumsfeld and until recently headed by the (also disgraced)
Richard Pearle who remains a "valued member" of the
organisation, is stacked with them), and has an unsavoury personal
history, but this hasn't stopped him giving weird prescriptions
for saving America from the foreign demons lurking in the pongy
passages of his fevered mind.
According to Gingrich, the fault with
Washington's foreign relations lies with the wimps of the State
Department. The blurb for his no doubt subtly-argued thesis to
be published in Foreign Policy reads "Why is anti-American
sentiment rising unabated around the globe? Try the US State
Department, which has abdicated values and principle in favour
of accommodation and passivity. Only a top-to-bottom reform and
culture shock will transform the State Department into an effective
communicator of President George W Bush's foreign policy."
It sounds as if Newt, who is a sensitive
soul (he demanded his first wife sign divorce papers while she
was in hospital recovering from cancer surgery), is seeking to
appear again on the Washington stage which he left so precipitately
following his censure by the House for ethics violations, thereby
disabling the Republican Party in mid-term elections--a much
more serious crime in some eyes.
It seems Gingrich is trying to pave the
way for a political comeback by attacking those whom he imagines
can't defend themselves because they are public servants. The
evil Senator McCarthy was good at this, and his main assaults
and insults, too, were reserved for the nation's diplomats, as
when he declared "I have here in my hand a list of 205--a
list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State
as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless
are still working and shaping policy in the State Department".
When Gingrich gave a speech to the American
Enterprise Institute last month ago he was at his most bombastic
and splenetic in declaring Powell's visit to Damascus to meet
the Syrian president to have been worse than ill-advised. He
insulted Powell by saying his meeting with a "terrorist-supporting,
secret police-wielding dictator is ludicrous" and castigated
the State Department by claiming its (sic) Middle East policy
"will clearly throw away all the fruits of hard-won victory"
in the Bush war on Iraq. The man is off his trolley, and his
allegation that the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern
Affairs is guilty of fostering "a culture of propping-up
dictators, coddling the corrupt (a bit rich, coming from the
ethical Newt) and ignoring the secret police" is just plain
daft.
There is a rumour in Washington that
Rumsfeld approved Newt's attack on Powell and his department,
and this isn't hard to believe if only because Rumsfeld is so
bent it is a wonder he doesn't sometimes meet himself coming
back along the corridor. But the vulnerability of this tactic
is Newt's professed assumption that foreign policy is defined
by the State Department, which is nonsense.
His absurd jibes were robustly countered
by the American Foreign Service Association which represents
the 10, 500 professionals in the State Department. Its head,
John Naland, wrote to Gingrich that "You have essentially
accused these employees of treachery... Your charges are spurious",
but the bold Newt ignored the riposte. His attack has backfired
for the moment, but it appears he is regrouping and that the
next foray is about to be launched.
This is not to say that there should
not be a shake-up in the manner Washington handles foreign policy.
Of course there should be. The first thing that should happen
is official barring of Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz from commenting
on matters other than defence in its most confined definition,
which would improve America's world standing and foreign relations
enormously.
State Department selection procedures
need to be shaken up, too, because there are three dozen US ambassadors
who have no qualifications for their jobs other than having provided
handsome donations or favours to the Republican party or to Bush
personally. (It has ever been thus, of course, whichever party
was in power.) To appreciate my point, please imagine yourself
to be an American diplomat of great competence with long experience
of the Middle East. You are an Arabic speaker verging on the
highest levels of your distinguished career. The most important
embassy in the Middle East (apart from Tel Aviv) is Riyadh. But
you don't get that post because the appointment went to monoglot
Robert Jordan, the campaign donor and lawyer who represented
Bush "during a potentially sticky 1990s Securities and Exchange
Commission investigation into insider trading at Bush's now-defunct
oil company, Harkin Energy Corporation". (Thanks to <www.opensecrets.org>
for this information.)
The ambassadors to France (Howard Leach;
$399,359 to the Republicans), Italy (Melvin Sembler; $127,600),
and Spain (George Argyros; $134,000) are other examples of heads
of mission in important countries who bought their appointments.
(There are thirty others in less high-profile capitals.) This
is improper treatment of competent career professionals and is
no way to promote respect for US foreign policy, so one has to
agree about the need for constructive reform. But the trouble
is that the Newt approach is redolent of demolition by diatribe.
One wonders if we might hear, someday, "I have in my hand
a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State
as being members of Al Qaeda... who nevertheless are still working
and shaping policy in the State Department..."
Brian Cloughley
is a former military officer who writes on international affairs.
His website is www.briancloughley.com
Today's
Features
CounterPunch
Wire
"Terror" Slut Steve Emerson
Eats Crow
Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
A Letter to Kofi Annan on Powell's Missing
Evidence
Ross
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Refuge of Goofy?
John
Chuckman
Blair's Awkward Lies
Matt
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Corporate Media and the Myth of the Free Market
Michael
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The Fine Print to Bush's Road Map
Robert
Fisk
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Elaine
Cassel
Clarence Thomas, Still Whining After All These Years
Jonathan
Freedland
Ann Coulter's Appalling Magic
Steve Perry
Play It Again, O-Sam-a
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