London
“IT’S NOT MY JOB to get George Bush reelected,” snorted a senior State Department officer when asked why he wasn’t speaking out to defend the president’s foreign policy. Which goes a long way to explaining why America’s critics have the field all to themselves in Europe’s capitals, while our ambassadors cower behind barricades, in many cases waiting for their subordinates to translate the day’s newspapers from a language with which they are unfamiliar. And why one prominent member of Britain’s Parliament complained to me that he had nowhere to turn when he needed some data to include in a speech in the House of Commons defending America’s policy in Iraq.
Little wonder that Christopher Marquis is able to report in the New York Times (reprinted in the International Herald Tribune for the delectation of overseas America-haters), “America . . . is having a hard time selling itself. The government’s public-relations drive to build a favorable impression abroad . . . is a shambles, according to both Republican and Democratic lawmakers, State Department officials and independent experts.”
How the mighty have fallen from the days after World War II, when America mounted a broadly successful campaign “to win hearts and minds in Europe,” as Jeffrey Gedmin and Craig Kennedy put it in their recent lament in the National Interest, “Selling America–Short.” Then, they point out, we had “the Congress for Cultural Freedom, . . . the political opinion magazine Encounter and crucial alliances with leading intellectuals. . . . The Ford Foundation and other charitable organizations were enlisted in a concerted effort to portray American culture in a fair and positive light.” We might not have convinced everyone that we were the good guys in the Cold War, but we convinced enough policymakers to enable us to do what had to be done to defend Western Europe and, ultimately, ourselves.
Now, America’s rhetorical guns have fallen silent or, at best, been reduced to a whisper. In Britain, only Tony Blair, risking the wrath of his party and his church, extols the virtue of American values, while William Farish, our ambassador to the Court of St. James, is nowhere to be seen–or heard. Farish was selected for this important post because of three qualifications: He had managed the senior Bush’s trust fund during the first Bush presidency, he contributed handsomely to the second Bush’s campaign and campaigned at his side, and he shares the queen’s interest in horses.
Indeed, one businessman, who had during earlier administrations regularly been invited to various seminars and meetings with our commercial attaché and other embassy personnel, and to a variety of social functions, remarked sarcastically at a recent dinner party that he thought we had closed our U.K. embassy. Another, a prominent ex-pat in the investment business, told me that he had with considerable difficulty lured our ambassador to a business function of the sort routinely attended by his predecessor, then watched in amazement as Farish found it necessary to read his 30-second introductory remarks from an index card.
Even the ambassador’s defenders admit that public speaking is not his long suit. Indeed, some damn him with faint praise. Here’s Peter Oborne, political editor of the Spectator: “Though unobtrusive to the point of invisibility on London’s diplomatic circuit, Farish, who shares a passion for blood-stock with the Queen, enjoys an entrée to royal circles unrivalled by any previous U.S. ambassador.” Unfortunately, the hearts and minds we are fighting for in Britain don’t reside at Buckingham Palace. The battle is being fought in seminars, on op-ed pages, on talk shows, on television panel programs, and over dinner tables.
Those, say Farish’s friends, are not the ambassador’s natural habitat. He prefers a low-key, nonpublic presentation of America’s position, and has succeeded in getting policymakers here to support those positions that matter most to American interests. Besides, most British media are irredeemably hostile to American policies, and are beyond persuading.
Perhaps. But to view the media as uniformly and permanently hostile is wrong. For one thing, Britain’s highest-circulation newspaper, the Sun, may be the most pro-American publication in the world; for another, to treat the media as irredeemably opposed to U.S. policy is to surrender without a fight. And the willingness of Great Britain to continue the special relationship in this fraught time has to be more Blair than Farish. Finally, there is more to diplomacy these days than quiet talks out of public view.
Britain’s ambassadors to Washington know this well. Sir David Manning, like his predecessor Sir Christopher Meyer, gathers together reporters, opinion-formers, thinkers, and others who might affect Americans’ views of British policy, or who might have valuable ideas that could enrich that policy. Indeed, I have had the pleasure of presiding over a small dinner party in which Sir Christopher was gang-tackled by about a dozen anti-euro policy types. Despite the intrinsic weakness of the position he was required to take by Tony Blair’s pro-euro policy, he held his ground. Each side agreed that there was something to be said for the other point of view, and we all (re)learned the many virtues of civil discussion.
I don’t mean to single out Farish. I am told that our ambassadors in other countries are also not to be seen or heard on the fields of battle for the hearts and minds of Europeans. Sources in Germany say that Dan Coats, generally regarded as able during his stints in the House of Representatives and as a senator from Indiana, is a nonfactor in the country to which he has for some reason been assigned, despite the availability of the 1,500 U.S. civilian and military personnel under his control. Ambassador Coats does not speak German, and hence cannot participate in radio or television debates or university seminars.
Just as our ambassador in London suffers by comparison with Britain’s ambassadors to America, he suffers by comparison with his German and Israeli counterparts at the Court of St. James. Berlin’s man in London has a communications link from his embassy to BBC studios so that he is instantly available to comment on the key early-morning radio programs when a matter of interest to his country is being reported or debated. Israel’s representatives here are typically all over the British media when the usual pro-Palestinian stories hit.
And I am told by a very politically attuned Italian entrepreneur that our situation in Italy is no better than in Britain and Germany. This important international businessman is vaguely aware that the U.S. ambassador was a real estate developer in an earlier life, but can’t recall his name. Others on the ground say they see little sign of any systematic defense of U.S. policy in the multiple fora in which foreign policy issues are debated. This, despite the fact that our ambassador in Rome, Mel Sembler, is an able and normally outspoken defender of American values who, when ambassador to Australia, was known for his active defense of American interests.
Since all of these ambassadors were given their plum appointments by Bush, they have no reason to be less than vigorous in defending his policies. So one doesn’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to guess that there is some centrally directed policy at work here. Sure, in this day and age our ambassadors need protection from terror attacks. And, yes, that will inevitably limit their freedom of movement somewhat. But it shouldn’t stop them from conducting many activities from the safety of their embassies. They might not be able to walk the length of the land as did Bill Clinton’s appointee to Britain, Philip Lader. But there is nothing to stop them from following his example and dealing themselves in on radio talk shows, seminars, business luncheons, and television programs. Or, in this day and age, being filmed in the embassy, or holding in-the-compound seminars to influence important policymakers. Or, at the very least, instructing embassy press officers to return reporters’ calls, something they are becoming rather famous for not doing, I am told.
But our diplomats just won’t make the effort necessary to explain America’s positions to Europeans who might be willing to listen. The simple fact is that the State Department professionals are behaving as if it were not part of their job to defend America’s foreign policy; or, more likely, they disagree with it to such an extent that they feel it intellectually dishonest to defend the president’s position. In which case–call me old fashioned–resignation would be the honorable course.
All of which raises the more important question: Where is Colin Powell when we and the president need him? In Europe, Powell is incontestably the most popular member of the president’s foreign policy team. Don Rumsfeld is portrayed as a macho bully, Paul Wolfowitz as a dangerous ideologue who, years before anyone had heard the dread initials WMD, was plotting the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and John Bolton (undersecretary of state for arms control and international security) as a sinister warmonger.
Powell, on the other hand, is the acceptable face of the Bush doctrine. But rather than take to the airwaves and the print media to defend American policy–his New Year’s Day op-ed piece in the New York Times being a rather bland exception–our secretary of state generally confines himself to private meetings with world leaders. I am told by anti-anti-Americans in Europe that Secretary Powell rarely combines visits with significant television interviews, does not regularly preside over particularly newsworthy press interviews, and does not generally meet with editorial boards or important academics.
It is possible, of course, that the secretary’s popularity exists precisely because he refuses to defend U.S. policy publicly and vigorously. But he can’t know unless he gives it a try, and in any event his capital is there to be used, not forever hoarded. Besides, even if Powell does choose to avoid taking to the field himself with meaningful frequency, he could order his troops to do so. What else are all of those thousands of employees in the great capitals of Europe and in Foggy Bottom there for?
BUT ENOUGH HAND-WRINGING. What is to be done? One possibility is to marshal the numerous expatriate Americans living and working abroad. My own experience in Britain suggests that won’t work. Many of these folks have left the United States for the United Kingdom purely in response to overwhelming economic opportunity: Their business is business, and although many of them are Bush supporters, they aren’t particularly interested in getting into arguments with prospective clients and partners.
Other expats are here because they find the cultural ambience more agreeable than the coarser variant, as they deem it, on offer in the United States; the muted version of market capitalism more agreeable than the red-in-tooth-and-claw U.S. version; and the left-wing plays on offer here just the right fare with which to end a not-too-hard day at the office. Many are among the world’s most virulent Bush-haters, sharing the view of the BBC-led British left that the president is an ignorant, gun-toting, God-quoting Texan whose presence in the White House, in place of the real winner of the last election, is an ongoing embarrassment, and whose Iraq adventure is all about oil.
That leaves the model of expatriate engagement that Jeff Gedmin–who styles himself a “combative intellectual”–has put together at the Aspen Institute, Berlin. He has, in essence, privatized the defense of American policy. Using his fluent German and a rolodex that can have come only from years of work, and with modest funding, Gedmin organizes seminars and debates. Many are built around the visits to Berlin of leading intellectuals, some of whom agree with American policy (William Shawcross) and others of whom do not (E.U. diplomat Robert Cooper, columnist William Pfaff). The purpose is to show that there is more than one side–the anti-American side–to the issues troubling Europeans. Add to that Gedmin’s steady stream of op-ed pieces and media appearances, and you have at least a partial substitute for the missing-in-action State Department.
Another possibility is to revert to the post-World War II model, and fund a “combatively intellectual” program, including a modern-day successor to Encounter and other platforms from which Americans–not all of whom need agree with every jot and tittle of the Bush doctrine, or be fond of all aspects of American culture–can discuss with their European counterparts the most contentious policy issues of the day: Iraq, the Kyoto agreement on global warming, the role of multinational institutions, preemptive military strikes–the list goes on.
Better still, the secretary of state might decide that now is the time to ride to the rescue of American policy –when better to spend one’s political capital than at the end of a distinguished career of public service, and in what better cause than the defense of the United States? Or he might with dignity decide that now is the time to call it a day, and turn the reins over to one more in tune with the president’s policy, and more willing to persuade the lifers at the State Department that it is indeed their job to fight in America’s corner. Better that than the present condition–in which America has unilaterally disarmed in the battle to explain our values and our goals.
Irwin M. Stelzer is a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard, director of economic policy studies at the Hudson Institute, and a columnist for the Sunday Times (London).
