In his Farewell Address, George Washington famously warned against the
"insidious wiles of foreign influence." In the instructive but depressing new book Turkmeniscam, Ken Silverstein shows that this danger is very real. Moreover, it's mostly our own fault. Why is it so easy for foreign governments to sell themselves in Washington? Because there are plenty of people inside the Beltway who are for sale--or at least for rent.

Lobbying does not occur in a vacuum, of course, and three features of contemporary U.S. politics account for the extent of this problem. The first is the extraordinary openness of the American political system, which gives anyone seeking to advance some cause numerous points of access. There are 535 members of the House and Senate, and one or two well-placed legislators on Capitol Hill can do you a lot of favors so long as the rest of their colleagues don't know or care about the issue at hand. If working the Hill doesn't pan out, there will be individuals in the Executive Branch who will be willing to advance some foreign power's agenda, particularly if that agenda is being pushed by experienced Washington insiders. As Silverstein shows, lobbying firms can also count on sympathetic think tanks and a pliable media to lend their efforts a patina of legitimacy.

The second reason that foreign lobbying is pervasive is America's dominant position in the international system. In the memorable phrase of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, we like to think of ourselves as the "indispensable nation" that "sees further into the future" than others do. The default condition of American foreign policy is meddling in other people's business, which in turn gives foreign governments a big incentive to try to influence how Washington uses its power.

This same sense of hubris also helps explain why politicians and pundits are often vulnerable to a lobby's PR campaign. When key officials are busy trying to rescue the global financial system, stabilize Colombia, stop the killings in Darfur, disarm Iran and North Korea, invade Iraq, pacify Afghanistan, advance the Doha Round, keep the lid on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, negotiate new security ties with India and find Osama bin Laden (along with dozens of other agenda items), it will be impossible for them to keep track of everything and everyone. With our leaders' attention divided and distracted, it is all too easy for professional spin-meisters to shape how a foreign country or a foreign leader is viewed in Washington. Just co-opt a couple of tame "experts" at some prominent think-tank and you are off and running.

Third, and perhaps most important, is the lack of accountability that is now
pervasive in contemporary America. As the Iraq war illustrates, failed forecasters like William Kristol routinely fail upward while truth-tellers like General Eric Shinseki are soon relegated to the sidelines. A political culture that places little value on integrity or truth will valorize spin doctors as long as they advance their clients' goals--even when the clients themselves leave much to be desired. In such a world, lobbyists who engage in deceptive practices are more likely to be rewarded than punished. Did the lobbying firm Hill and Knowlton lose business or prestige after it helped arrange bogus Congressional testimony about Iraqi atrocities prior to the 1991 Gulf war, even after it was revealed that young Iraqi refugee who bore witness to these crimes was actually the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador? Not likely.

By drawing back the curtain on these activities in an entertaining yet compelling way, Ken Silverstein has done us all a great service. But given that such activities are now hard-wired into the policy process, I fear that it will take more than his excellent book to clean up these Augean stables.

--Stephen Walt
John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University