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“What motivates the State Department?”

I feel like Babe Ruth awaiting a slow pitch thrown over the middle of the plate. How lucky can I get? Only the question 1+1=? might be easier. The state department is staffed by many individuals who attended the ìbestî universities. They learned that brown skinned Muslims have been allegedly victimized by white Westerners. The Palestinians are victims of Israeli imperialism. What else do you need to know?

Old bad habits are hard to break.

Messrs. Thomson and cubanbob have a couple of the parts of the problem correct.

Mr. Thomson points out that the State Department’s personnel tend to sympathize with anti-Western narratives. Given that, as he says, the Foreign Service Officer (FSO) Corps is generally staffed with people with master’s degrees or better, that’s a cultural influence that can’t be denied, but in general, it’s not overwhelming overall (though in decades past, for example, the Arabists at State proved a good example of the kind of bias he describes).

Secondly, the FSO Corps tends to view itself self-consciously as an internationalist elite, which isn’t entirely unfair, given their (generally pleasant) experiences abroad, but what is unfair is that they often reflexively ascribe ignorance and isolationism to those who recommend policies with which they disagree. (The FSO Corps is heavily Democratic, and Republicans often end up on the short end of this kind of characterization, as do members of the military. The CIA is frowned on for different reasons.)

This tendency is amplified by the fact that, given their regular sojourns abroad and their primary socialization is with other FSOs and families, they’re particularly susceptible to the type of groupthink consensus that is naturally bred among insular groups.

Third, there is the syndrome known in the government as “clientitis,” where people abroad (or even at country desks) try so hard to understand the foreign governments’ point of view (and build friendly working relationships with their counterparts), they end up unconsciously internalizing it, and end up advocating those countries’ interests to Washington rather than keeping American interests foremost.

Fourth, there’s the insitutional character of the State Department. Its business is diplomacy. While war is famously said to be diplomacy by other means, the converse is not well appreciated. When your primary job is negotiating, you tend to view negotiation as a good in and of itself.

Most of these factors come down to an unduly narrow, or slightly distorted, view of statecraft.

Most of the State Department’s seemingly bizarre behavior can be explained if you think of State as the government’s “make-nice” agency. Their job (as they frequently see it) is to make nice with the world, to advance American interests through peaceful, diplomatic means. Consequently, they sometimes reflexively advocate “making nice” even in situations where it’s not appropriate. Like here: “We don’t want a war, and Israel is the only sane interlocutor, so we have to lean on them not to have a war.”

This despite the fact that the Israelis’ destroying much of Hamas’s infrastructure and leadership is arguably very much in the American interest, given their prominence in the “Bombintern” of international terrorism, and that the Bush Doctrine would seem to explicitly support action against them. Counterarguments can be made, of course, and they obviously are persuasive to Foggy Bottom.

Word Guy, thanks for your excellent tour d’horizon. ‘Bombintern’ – now there’s a new appellation that could fly.

Word Guy, Roger.. all

Word Guy, kudos for your great rationale and explanation for the current state of relationship between the State Dept. and POTUS. As an self described Neo-con with a tendency to carry deep disdain towards my former Democratic (anti-Lieberman) comrades, even for me it is too simplistic to ascribe blame to Democrats (even if natural) because the “Diplomatic” institution the State Dept is will naturally inspire a bias towards diplomacy and if the needs of the day demand assertions of aggressiveness from our government outside the box and boundaries the State Dept. works within, at a minimum the State Dept will more instinctively play the role of “good cop”.

That being said I do feel the State Dept has crossed over the line way too often (as has the media and other institutions who stand in disagreement with some policies) and in such cases I just wish as head of the executive branch the POTUS would assert his own prerogatives, reclaim his authority while reminding us all of his prerogatives, and then open up a big old can of whoop ass and start kicking some ass here at home. I bet his approval ratings would go up (as well as support for the War)… just wishing.

JSF

Joseph

Good to hear from you, been a while. I can only shake my head in agreement re the whoop ass and support numbers. I just don’t understand why he does not do so…

State has its own foreign policy and ignores or obstructs that of Presidents it disagrees with. State apparatchiks view the President as a short timer, who will be long gone while they will still be working at their desks at State.

According to the Plum Book, the President gets to appoint less than 200 advocates for his positions at State, which has 24,000 employees. Many of these slots are never filled or are filled by acting career State people in the absence of a Presidential appointee.

The few people I have known who became FSO’s impressed me with their sense of both entitlement and superiority and gave me the impression that the Foreign Service was like an elite country club where entry was open only to those with the “right” breeding, money, the right schools, the “right” politics and connections. Very Democratic, very Lefty, they definitely felt superior to the boobs in flyover country. Despite some hardships, they lived pretty cushy lives overseas, to hear them tell it, and their attitudes reminded me of what I had read about British attitudes during the Raj. I don’t know if the few I met were representative but, I fear they were.

Thanks to GaryK and Word Guy.

Not only of course. But the obvious, staring us in the face, is, we all know where things are at.
Question is, how do we change? Hint; its not all politics.

” Two: State is playing a double-game, making a pretense of slapping the Israeli’s wrists while allowing the President to set the real policy. ”

So if that is true how does one explain this following news:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50880

“Rewards for Justice, a program administered by the U.S. State Department for the purpose of “bring[ing] international terrorists to justice,” includes names, photographs and other background information about those wanted for attacks against American citizens in places such as the Philippines, Yemen and Italy on it’s website, but when it comes to Israel, the site fails to identify a single perpetrator of a suicide bombing or other attack as a Palestinian.”

Rice and Wolfensohn’s “Border Brokerage” firm made a big mess of their Gaza/Egypt deal which only improved Hamas and partners fire power against poorer returns on Israeli security over the months since last year so maybe we have to settle for Three.
I suppose that part of the cost of that deal will be rebuilding the Gaza power station which should give USAID something to do.

One must also keep in mind that now that everyone knows the Israel Lobby owns the White House and Congress (after all, Mearsheimer and Walt have documented this truth meticulously; and in spite of all their errors of fact, documentation,judgment and interpretation, their conclusions must be true because, well, because so many feel it in their bones to be true—moreover, the more one contests it, the more true it becomes, ingenious theory that it is), the State Dept. must strive to do its absolute best to limit the power of this insidious Lobby, or at least make it appear as though they are, since one wouldn’t want to make it look as though the US is playing favorites here.

What, after all, is a diplomatic corps for?

Besides, it’s merely the American way: checks ‘n balances, Dept. of State style.

For the fact is that State is Damage Control, Inc., and surely sees itself as saving America’s soul in the face of Jewish perfidy.

And that is the real crusade emanating out of Washington.