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Gingrich on Powell
State and Defense Department bickering over who should direct U.S. foreign policy, particularly the Iraq reconstruction effort, has one former lawmaker demanding the diplomatic corps get a major overhaul. "The last seven months have involved six months of diplomatic failure and one month of military success. The first days after military victory indicate the pattern of diplomatic failure is beginning once again and threatens to undo the effects of military victory," Newt Gingrich told an audience at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.
He gets to the point in the next paragraph.
Much of Gingrich's rhetoric was aimed at the Near East Bureau of the State Department. Among the complaints, Gingrich blasted Powell for planning a trip to Syria, working with Russia, the European Union and the United Nations on a Middle East peace road map, and focusing on prewar weapons inspections rather than regime change. Gingrich said approving Hans Blix as chief U.N. weapons inspector was a mistake made "even though he was clearly opposed to war and determined to buy time and find excuses for Saddam Hussein."
| All this is sharpshooting the minutiae of the diplo process. Powell in Syria may cast the image of us affording a tin-hat dictatorship more importance than it deserves, but it also sends our highest-ranking diplomat to underscore what our position is. Bashar can't say that he misunderstood some deputy assistant undersecretary after he's talked to the boss. The relationship with Russia is a temporary bobble. I think Dick Morris did as much to repair the relationship as anyone when he gave an interview to Izvestie that was headlined "Russia simply made a mistake." He held out the prospect of the "Big Three" from Yalta being reconstituted â and pointed out that two out of three had been on board. Russia's not a superpower anymore, but it's a fledgling great power. Once it's economic growing pains are behind it, it's going to take off. (You read it here first: "Russia as economic miracle.") |
Gingrich spared no criticism over Powell's planned trip to Syria, saying that the secretary going to meet "with a terrorist-supporting, secret police-wielding dictator is ludicrous... Without bold, dramatic change at the State Department, the United States will soon find itself on the defensive everywhere except militarily. In the long run, that is a very dangerous position for the world's leading democracy to be in."
| Read up on Clausewitz: War's diplomacy by other means. The diplomacy goes on all the time. And then read up on Jomini: for maximum effect, force should be concentrated at the enemy's weakest points. Most of diplomacy consists of reconnaissance. |
At his regular briefing Tuesday, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer called the diplomatic efforts at the United Nations an important process that paved the way for the military action. Fleischer added that Powell was merely following President Bush's orders. "This is a process that the president decided on in his speech to the United Nations in September, and the fact of the matter is the State Department and Secretary Powell did an excellent job at ushering through that process," Fleischer said.
| I think the diplomatic options was one line of attack that we tried, and it didn't work, but it provided us with certain advantages â like knowing who our real friends are, and giving those who aren't the opportunity to shoot themselves in the foot (or in the case of France, in the mouth)... |
Behind the scenes, a senior administration official called Gingrich's comments out of line.
Does Newty have a book coming out soon, or something?
"Newt stepped in it. He served the country very well when he was happily retired," the official said.
I almost forgot that I kinda liked Newt. Now I know why I forgot.
| I still like him, but we've all been wrong at one time or another, and in some cases spectacularly wrong. |
Posted by: Mike N. 2003-04-23 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=13397 |
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