NeoCon In & Realist Out: Shuffling the Deck Chairs at the State Department
Stephen Krasner, Director of Policy Planning at the Department of State and one of Condi Rice's mentors, will be departing his position within a month and returning to his tenured faculty position at Stanford University.
While Krasner the realist plans to depart, however, a neoconservative -- Eliot Cohen -- is moving into the Secretary's suite as her Counselor.
Krasner, who is one of the leading realist intellectuals in the United States, was brought in by Rice to try and work some of his ideas through the policy process. Those around him and who admire his thinking and work report that Krasner did serve Secretary Rice well as one of her key "ideas guys" but that he had little stomach for constant combat with bureaucratic rivals over the course of policy.
The sources I spoke to said that Krasner did not know that the most obvious best idea didn't automatically win the competitive games in and around the President and that any initiative required herculean, tenacious advocacy.
That said, Krasner -- despite the "thrill" of the job has been pushed to the point of serious exhaustion -- and needs to take both a mental and physical health break. Krasner just returned from Istanbul this week.
This writer also must note that Stephen Krasner's office has not confirmed his departure; nor did staffers there deny it. I received a non-denial denial in which one of his colleagues said, "Steve is leaving? First I've heard of it." Another person at State to whom I reported that I had heard rumors of his departure, refused to comment other than saying "Now the rumor has reached us via your phone call."
However, multiple close colleagues of Krasner have reported that Stanford will have him back soon.
But in another slot that Condi Rice had open among her close team was the Counselor position, vacated recently by University of Virgnia historian Philip Zelikow.
Late last week, Secretary of State Rice shocked many by appointing a leading neoconservative intellectual, Eliot A. Cohen, as her Counselor. Cohen was a leading proponent of the Iraq War -- and has only recently begun to critique -- along with other leading neocons like Richard Perle, Kenneth Adelman, and David Frum -- the Bush administration's effort as one that has not gone as expected.
This article, "The Talented Mr. Cohen," published by Ximena Ortiz at National Interest Online captures well the often-contradictory positions and statements Cohen has made on the Iraq war.
As reported in this piece by Jim Lobe, I believe that Cohen's appointment is in part an effort to get someone past the Cheney foreign policy wing. Rice does not like to do direct battle with the Vice President and views personnel appointments as a way to inoculate herself and her efforts against sabotage from the Cheney team.
In other words, Cohen has joined Condi's team both to create back-channel communications with Cheney's spear-carriers but also to protect Condi from all-out assault from the Vice President.
When I queried another top-tier political and intellectual personality who works closely with Eliot Cohen, the response I received was that he was surprised Cohen would want the job at this point in the life-span of the Bush administration.
This person also stated that Cohen would probably take over much of the "democratization" and "how to do nation building" portfolios that Krasner was working on as Director of Policy Planning. According to this source, Eliot Cohen has been working on the subject of how to get democratization -- the nuts and bolts of the process -- right.
The net effect for Condi's game plan though is that Cohen protecting her rear flank from Cheney's assaults is probably more important than any thing new he might achieve in another risky R&D effort on nation-building.
On one other front, I have confirmed that Eliot Cohen will resign his position as an Executive Committee member of the journal, The American Interest.
-- Steve Clemons is Senior Fellow and Director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation and publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note
Has Rice ever had any real influence in this Administration?
What has she accomplished as National Security Advisor and now as Sec of State?
I can't answer these questions, maybe you can. Since her original appointment I've seen her as simply window dressing.
March 4, 2007 9:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
For that matter, what has the Bush administration accomplished for this country in the last six years??
March 4, 2007 3:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dumped thousands of piles of doo-doo all over the carpets ... and the stains will last for decades.
~OGD~
March 4, 2007 3:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Name the 4 Horsemen of the Apocolypse.
March 4, 2007 4:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dick, Dick, Dick, and Dick? Alternatively, those are the trainers of the horses, and George is the showy rider in the flight jacket spangled costume?
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
March 4, 2007 5:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe she gets some credit for pulling a deal with the DPRK (about four years too late), trumpeted at the NYT as a return of realism (in a news analysis piece I can't find). If so, given the news Steve brings us, well, that was short-lived.
March 4, 2007 9:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Cutting question Bronto1, and the answer, or rather the numbing lack thereof, strikes at the heart of the many crisis facing America now and in the future.
If anyone, and especially the complicit parrots in the socalled MSM truly bothered to examine the factbasedrealities of the Bush government deceptions, failures, abuses, wanton profiteering, the insidious dismembering, perverting, and reengineering of the Constitution, and the core principles that formally defined America, and the wretched legacy of the Bush government in the light of day, - every reasonable American would raise his or her voice, and fist and demand IMPEACHMENT of every single fascist warmongers and profiteer in this criminal regime.
9/11
The shredding and perverting of the Constitution, the laws of the land, the rule of law, and every principle upon which this nation was founded.
The fascist OSP/OSI/Whig cabals contaminating the intelligence product and deceptively selling an unjust, unnecessary, illegal, and immoral war.
The deceptive bloody, costly, noendinsight horrorshow in Iraq,
3100 + dead soldiers,
22,000 injured or maimed
Countless thousands of innocent Iraqi's slaughered and maimed
No accounting
$10bn tax payer dollars simply missing
Wanton profiteering rooting back to cronies, cabals, and oligarchs in or beholden to the fascist warmongers and profiteers in the Bush government.
Global loss of credibility.
The seething hatred of America globally.
The pathetic response to Katrina then, and even more alarmingly New Orleans now.
Economic policies benefiting 1% of the population exclusively.
The sliming of our fellow Americans for daring to question, challenge, or oppose the Bush government fascist policies as anti-American, unpatriotic, and giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
The protection, cloaking, and overt coddling of the House of Saud and wahabi madrasses abundantly and funding and nurturing all the jihadist mass murder gangs including al Quaida.
Afghanistan crumbling, and the Taliban and al Quaida reconstituting.
Debt and deficits as far as the eye can see heaped on the shoulders of our unborn children.
Evangelical religious zealots and freaks commandeering a disproportionate influence in the government.
The empowerment of Iran.
The hollow threats and a reanimation of the same disinformation warfare campaigns deceptively justifying Iraq now being employed to sell another war against Iran.
Detention centers.
The revenge outing of Valeries Plame and Brewster Jennings and Associates.
NK nuke development.
I could go on for pages, but why bother? If Americans cannot recognize and accept, and fails to confront the radical nazification of America by oleaginous fascist cabals, criminals warmongers, profiteers, and fanaticus religious zealots, - then we may actually deserve whatever fiery pit and hell the fascist warmongers and profiteers in the Bush government hurl us into.
"Deliver us from evil!"
March 4, 2007 11:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Krasner had been living in a cave from 2000-2004?
March 5, 2007 4:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
What Cohen will advocate at State I have no idea. His book "Supreme Command" is excellent. Also unlike the people here and in the Bush Administration his son is serving in Iraq.
What increasingly seems really obvious is how little difference there is between the Bush people their equivelents on the Left.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
March 5, 2007 7:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm here, but I'm too old to have a son in IRAQ.
For informatiional purposes only; What/who are the Bush people's equivalents on the left?
March 5, 2007 7:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
"serving in Iraq"?
And who or what, pray tell, are they serving?
March 5, 2007 8:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
For a rider of Apocalypse, George has a curious habit of falling off his bike (and even his TV couch, which is a bit of achievement, if you ask me, I've done the former but not the latter). I shudder when I imagine him on a horse.
March 5, 2007 8:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Joe Wilson - June 14, 2003
"The real agenda in all of this of course, was to redraw the political map of the Middle East. Now that is code, whether you like it or not, but it is code for putting into place the strategy memorandum that was done by Richard Perle and his study group in the mid-90's which was called, "A Clean Break - A New Strategy for the Realm." And what it is, cut to the quick, is if you take out some of these countries, some of these governments that are antagonistic to Israel then you provide the Israeli government with greater wherewithal to impose its terms and conditions upon the Palestinian people, whatever those terms and conditions might be. In other words, the road to peace in the Middle East goes through Baghdad and Damascus. Maybe Tehran. And maybe Cairo and maybe Tripoli if these guys actually have their way. Rather than going through Jerusalem."
19:46: http://next.epic-usa.org/epicdev2/_media/2003forumaudio/28-lecture-wilson-32.mp3
"On the other ones, the geopolitical situation, I think there are a number of issues at play; there's a number of competing agendas. One is the remaking of the map of the Middle East for Israeli security, and my fear is that when it becomes increasingly apparent that this was all done to make Sharon's life easier and that American soldiers are dying in order to enable Sharon to impose his terms upon the Palestinians that people will wonder why it is American boys and girls are dying for Israel and that will undercut a strategic relationship and a moral obligation that we've had towards Israel for 55 years. I think it's a terribly flawed strategy."
13:33: http://next.epic-usa.org/epicdev2/_media/2003forumaudio/29-lecture-qa-32.mp3
May '04, Gen. Anthony Zinni on 60 Minutes
Zinni is talking about a group of policymakers within the administration known as "the neo-conservatives" who saw the invasion of Iraq as a way to stabilize American interests in the region and strengthen the position of Israel.
They include Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith; Former Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle; National Security Council member Eliot Abrams; and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
Zinni believes they are political ideologues who have hijacked American policy in Iraq.
"I think it's the worst kept secret in Washington. That everybody - everybody I talk to in Washington has known and fully knows what their agenda was and what they were trying to do," says Zinni.
"And one article, because I mentioned the neo-conservatives who describe themselves as neo-conservatives, I was called anti-Semitic. I mean, you know, unbelievable that that's the kind of personal attacks that are run when you criticize a strategy and those who propose it. I certainly didn't criticize who they were. I certainly don't know what their ethnic religious backgrounds are. And I'm not interested."
"I know what strategy they promoted. And openly. And for a number of years. And what they have convinced the president and the secretary to do. And I don't believe there is any serious political leader, military leader, diplomat in Washington that doesn't know where it came from."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/21/60minutes/main618896.shtml
Is the Iraq war the great neoconservative war? It's the war the neoconservatives wanted, [NY Times columnist Tom] Friedman says. It's the war the neoconservatives marketed. Those people had an idea to sell when September 11 came, and they sold it. Oh boy, did they sell it. So this is not a war that the masses demanded. This is a war of an elite. Friedman laughs: I could give you the names of 25 people (all of whom are at this moment within a five-block radius of this office) who, if you had exiled them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq war would not have happened.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=280279&contrassID=2&subContrassID=14&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
The War Party - BBC
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6453738561338241311
more on 'A Clean Break'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4MdyJDnSoI
http://nytimes.com/2004/09/06/politics/06spy.html?ex=1252123200&en=f69ed749a90b9f88&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland
March 6, 2007 6:10 PM | Reply | Permalink