Now He Listens?

Shadi Hamid on Peter Baker's weird theory that opposition from foreign service professions wrecked Bush's strategy of democracy promotion:

Wait a second, wasn’t the State Department against another “new idea” in 2002? I seem to recall that there was some talk around then of invading a foreign country that had nothing to do with 9/11. I seem to also recall that the State Department bureaucracy was furious about this. President Bush was able, however, to overrule or circumvent this “resistance” because he wanted to. Iraq was his priority. I don’t doubt that Bush is sincere in his commitment to democracy, but I’m under no illusions that it was ever a top priority of his, or that it took precedence over more “tangible” strategic interests…like, um, supporting dictators with billions of dollars, something which Bush has proven quite fond of.

Right. Similarly, one doubts that the professional bureaucracy in the Treasury Department has been wildly enthusiastic about Bush's tax-and-budget policies or that folks in the EPA love Bush's environmental policies. The dominant views of the civil service, the foreign service, the uniformed military, and the intelligence community all really do matter in Washington, but Bush has time and again shown an ability to get his way when he's determined to. The democracy agenda didn't make it through the grinder because there was no agenda.

Comments

It's a joke to suggest that the grinder thwarted any policy.

Was the State Department supposed to reorient policy towards Saudi Arabia and Pakistan after some of Bush's more rousing speeches? There's nothing in any of Bush's speeches to suggest that he is displeased at our policy toward those countries.

His democracy rhetoric was happy talk, rightly ignored by everyone, including himself.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | August 21, 2007 10:40 PM

I seem to recall that there was some talk around then of invading a foreign country that had nothing to do with 9/11. I seem to also recall that the State Department bureaucracy was furious about this. President Bush was able, however, to overrule or circumvent this “resistance” because he wanted to.

What an asinine critique. Invasions are the purview of the Defense Department, not the State Department. You don't have to "overrule or circumvent" resistance in the State Department; the State Department has no influence whatsoever as to invasions.

Shadi Hamid's idiotic statement is no different than if he had said that Bush had to overrule or circumvent the bureaucrats in the Agricuture Department to go to war. It makes no sense at all.

Maybe this is too difficult a concept for Shadi Hamid to grasp, but bureaucrats can only foil the Administration's policy if those bureaucrats are the people the Administration is counting on to implement the policy. Nobody at the State Department was being counted on by the Administration to drive any tanks or drop any bombs in Iraq.

On the other hand, democracy promotion IS the purview of the State Department. You can't get that accomplished if the State Department bureaucracy opposes it. And the State Department clearly hates democracy promotion. They opposed, and therefore it didn't get done.

Just a completely ignorant post by Hamid.

Posted by Al | August 21, 2007 10:47 PM

"On the other hand, democracy promotion IS the purview of the State Department. "

Not when you use the military to try and do it.

Purple fingers!

Posted by blatherskite | August 22, 2007 12:02 AM

"Just a completely ignorant post by Hamid."

Just a completely ignorant post by Al.

Where Hamid does lose it is here:

"I don’t doubt that Bush is sincere in his commitment to democracy"

Bitch, please...

Particularly when he follows it up with this:

"like, um, supporting dictators with billions of dollars, something which Bush has proven quite fond of."

What's wrong with this picture?

I'll tell you.

What's wrong is that Hamid doesn't have the guts to simply say outright that Bush has ZERO interest in "democracy" and probably couldn't define the term if asked.

THIS is what's wrong with the criticism of these crooks and liars - nobody has the nuts to simply call them crooks and liars. And anybody who does is instantly marginalized as not a "Serious Commentator".

There are those who refer to the Bushies as "the Bush crime family". THAT is the proper way to refer to "our President" - and Cheney - as indistinguishable from John Giotti or Al Capone.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | August 22, 2007 3:02 AM

"On the other hand, democracy promotion IS the purview of the State Department. "

I've been reading Al for a long time and before you just call him an idiot for saying this, you have to realize that you and he have some radically differing versions of what democracy means and the way he uses that word it makes perfect sense.

Posted by Ed Marshall | August 22, 2007 3:08 AM

I bow to your superior knowledge of Al.

It still makes no sense to rant about Hamid's point on that basis, when it's clear the presumption Hamid is criticizing is that the State Department wrecked Bush's plans, whether said plans were by invasion or diplomacy (especially since the latter didn't exist in any event.) Matt is correct in his last sentence - that is the point.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | August 22, 2007 5:15 AM

This DemocracyArsenal place, is it in any way connected with democracy, except in the sense that Al uses the word?

Because they are sure turning out some weird stuff these days, and a lot of it seems to have to do with a yellow little violence fetish and a deep commitment to dishonesty.

Posted by MFB | August 22, 2007 5:38 AM

But, but, but, I took a poll of reporters and they's wuz Democrats so it proves that the media's all Democrats!!!

Posted by El Cid | August 22, 2007 7:22 AM

Let's pretend for a second that Al has a valid point - that the administration had no need to overcome the State Department bureaucrats to get their war on in Iraq.

Then, let's remember that it IS the State Department's purview to develop post-war plans. Then let's remember that the State Department did, in fact, develop said plans.

The administration broke absolutely no sweat in ignoring those plans and going with the reccomendations of Rumsfeld, Chalabi, the CPA, etc. etc. All of which turned out to be disastrously wrong, at the cost of many American and Iraqi lives.

The point is, even if Hamid's rhetoric is flawed, his analysis is correct. If Bush actually believed in democracy promotion, the U.S. government (especially when it was fully in his control) would have engaged in some..somewhere...at least once.

Posted by jp | August 22, 2007 8:13 AM

Even if decisions about and the conduct of war are not within the purview of the State Department, it's likely that the State professionals would have some fairly strong opinions about the exercise of military power in foreign countries and that their opinions would be based on something other than wishful thinking.

They are, for instance, much more likely to have a clue about the social, cultural, and political consequences of an invasion than would the Secretary of Defense or our Dear Leader.

To wit, Colin Powell's "you break it, you buy it" remark. However ineffectual (or spineless) he turned out to be, he did, at least, make some effort to inject rationality in to the decision as to whether to invade.

Posted by THS | August 22, 2007 8:50 AM

Shadi Hamid's idiotic statement is no different than if he had said that Bush had to overrule or circumvent the bureaucrats in the Agricuture Department to go to war.

Well, but wouldn't you want the President, before deciding to go to war, to ask his advisors on agriculture about the impact of the war on agriculture and our ability to feed the country? Churchill and FDR paid considerable attention to their agricultural advisors in WW II--the Battle of the Atlantic was ultimately about agriculture, and if the Allies had lost, the UK would have starved.

And of course, "agriculture" is just Al's simile--we're really the state department and foriegn policy. Doesn't Al think that foriegn policy has some relevance to the decision to go to war?

Posted by rea | August 22, 2007 10:08 AM