bureaucratic politics

As Peter Feaver observed over at Shadow Government, there's an ever-increasing number of leaks coming from the Obama administration on foreign policy. 

Beyond the drip-drip-drip on the Afghan strategic review, the foreign policy community is now agog at Massimo Calabresi and Michael Weisskopf's story in Time on the rise and fall of Greg Craig, Obama's first White House Counsel.  Former colleague Laura Rozen labels it as, "one of the most devastating accounts to have emerged of the Obama White House."

Calabresi and Weisskopf's story contains astonishing revelations, like the following: 

• Obama's foreign policy preferences changed as he confronted political realities;
• As time has passed, Obama has paid more attention to the political ramifications of his national security decisions;
• There were fierce bureaucratic battles over the release of national security memoranda;
• Greg Craig's influence waned when his policy recommendations produced political blowback;
• Over time, Obama has tried to balance national security concerns with his desire to unwind some of the Bush administraton's excessive actions.
• People who oppose Greg Craig did so mostly for short-sighted political reasons.

Well, blow me down.  

I don't mean to belittle those who either ardently support or ardently oppose the initial efforts to eliminate the legacies of Guantanamo and the like.  But stories that reveal politicians to be acting, er, politically don't really cause my jaw to drop. 

The only interesting thing I found in this piece was the part Rozen excerpted:

Obama arrived at Emanuel's office a few minutes later, took off his windbreaker and sat down at a table lined with about a dozen national-security and political advisers. He asked each to state a position and then convened an impromptu debate, selecting Craig and McDonough to argue opposing sides. Craig deployed one of Obama's own moral arguments: that releasing the memos "was consistent with taking a high road" and was "sensitive to our values and our traditions as well as the rule of law." Obama paused, then decided in favor of Craig, dictating a detailed statement explaining his position that would be released the next day.

But for Craig, it turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory. Four days later, former Vice President Dick Cheney attacked Obama on Fox News Channel for dismantling the policies he and Bush had put in place to keep the country safe. More significant was the reaction within Obama's camp. Democratic pollsters charted a disturbing trend: a drop in Obama's support among independents, driven in part by national-security issues. Emanuel quietly delegated his aides to get more deeply involved in the process. Damaged by the episode, Craig was about to suffer his first big setback.

In other words, the  median American voters are comfortable with using illiberal means to protect the national interest (hmmm... that sounds familiar).  And, shock upon shock, politicians respond to public attitudes.   

In light of Hamid Karzai's agreement to go forward on a run-off election in Afghanistan, I was curious about special envoy Richard Holbrooke's role in this denouement.  Jon Western links to this Nukes & Spooks McClatchy blog post chock-full of some inside dirt: 

Three administration officials, who asked not to be identified by agency, told us that, while Holbrooke is laboring away hard behind the scenes, he's received direct orders from the White House to cool it publicly while Washington desperately tries to unscramble the Afghan electoral mess between President Hamid Karzai and his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah.

"This process is so sensitive. He'd love to deal with this. The White House thinks ... it's not the time for him" to be out front, one of the officials said of Holbrooke...

To be fair -- and we do try to be fair here at N&S, we're told that the White House orders are not directed at Holbrooke alone. Everyone involved in Af/Pak policy has been told to keep a lid on it while President Obama deals with the difficult decision of how to keep the situation there from dropping into the abyss and whether to send more American servicemen and women to Afghanistan.

Everyone did keep quiet... except Senator John Kerry.  The Wall Street Journal's Jay Solomon and Peter Spiegel explain why: 

According to one Western diplomat, the Afghan president was more comfortable dealing with Sen. Kerry than with U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry or the administration's special representative to the region, Richard Holbrooke. Mr. Holbrooke angered Mr. Karzai when he suggested shortly after the Aug. 20 election that a runoff might be needed.

I'm beginning to wonder if Hoobrooke is simply the exemplar of the bad cop in foreign affairs.  For his sake, I hope so.  Otherwise, he's stuck being an envoy to a region in which the Indians won't talk to him, the Afghans won't talk to hi, and the Pakistanis that will talk to him are feckless. 

I read with great interest the Wall Street Journal story entitled "A President as Micromanager" about Barack Obama's decision-making style -- and had the exact same reaction as Noam Scheiber: 

The big problem is that the piece conflates two very different things: One is micromanaging, which involves making decisions that are well below your pay-grade. The other is wanting detailed information on which to base decisions that are at precisely your pay grade. The Journal story presents lots of evidence for the latter; zero evidence for the former....

If I had to guess, I'd say what happened is that the Journal found itself with a nice story about the way Obama makes decisions, but that it seemed too positive. As the piece itself notes: "Unavoidably, the accounts all come from people who admire Mr. Obama, not from his critics, who aren't privy to such sessions." The "micromanager" frame was presumably added somewhere along the way to correct for this problem and make the piece seem more even-handed.

Indeed.  For all the puff pieces on Obama's management style, this article suffers from the reverse problem -- it tries to paint a negative frame and doesn't succeed because of the lack of evidence.  Instead, the Obama in the WSJ story is someone who is intellectually curious, eager for data (which, as Scheiber points out, is distinct from micromanaging) and naturally contrarian. 

In other words, pretty much the opposite of the last person to occupy the Oval Office.  Which is fine with me. 

During the transition, Barack Obama voiced numerous concerns about being trapped in the Presidential "bubble," cut off from the rest of the real world. Oddly enough, this is also a concern of 30 Rock. 

If this New York Times story by Clifford J. Levy and Ellen Barry is any indication, the bubble seems to have completely enveloped Obama's White House staff: 

Crowds did not clamor for a glimpse of him. Headlines offered only glancing or flippant notice of his activities. Television programming was uninterrupted; devotees of the Russian Judge Judy had nothing to fear. Even many students and alumni of the Western-oriented business school where Mr. Obama gave the graduation address on Tuesday seemed merely respectful, but hardly enthralled....

Some Obama aides said they were struck by the low-key reception here, especially when compared with the outpouring on some of his other foreign trips. Even Michelle Obama, who typically enjoys admiring coverage in the local news media when she travels, has not had her every move chronicled here.

Seriously?  Seriously?!  The President of the United States visits a staunchly nationalist country that has significant conflicts with Washington, and the charm offensive didn't take?  Well, blow me down!! 

When/if Obama visits China and India, his staffers might have some more rude awakenings in their future.  

 

A recurring theme of this blog has been the relationship between academics and policymakers.  What, if anything should academics have on offer?  What should they have to offer? 

Stanford's alumni magazine offers an interesting take on this question, asking six scholars and policymakers affiliated with the university about, "what lessons they drew from conflicts they studied or had a role in, and how they relayed their insights to the people in charge."

The most fascinating anecdote comes from Priya Satia: 

In 2007, the U.S. Directorate of National Intelligence invited Satia to address staffers from more than a dozen different intelligence organizations about Middle East counterinsurgency. She spoke about the risks of groupthink, and the price British and Iraqis paid for that. But the message seemed to pass people by.

They wanted to hear more about T.E. Lawrence, she says, not sounding very surprised. “The kind of people who get into intelligence have been inspired by the T.E. Lawrences—they staked their careers on having some kind of secret role in the making of history, and when you tell them that’s not going to work, I mean, what are they supposed to do with that information?”

I assume Satia must have been talking to the operations people, because I find it hard to believe that analysts are really all that inspired by T.E. Lawrence. 

That quibble aside, Satia raises an interesting point.  Many social scientists focus on the myriad structural reasons why things are the way they are.  Policymakers believe they can help shape the way things are.  The last thing they often want to hear is why their ideas won't work.  And while scholars can often explain why an idea won't work, they are often at a loss to offer a superior, politically viable alternative. 

This might be an "irreconcilable" problem, but I'll leave that question to the commentators. 

This is normally Laura Rozen or David Rothkopf's beat, but I found several interesting reveals in Helene Cooper's New York Times story on how General James L. Jones is working out at national security advisor.  This included a sit-down between Cooper and Jones.

First, there's the dueling moosehead factor.  Rothkopf voices some disapproval of Jones: 

"The national security adviser needs to be behind the president” both literally and figuratively, said David Rothkopf, author of “Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power.” General Jones, Mr. Rothkopf said, is not “seen as the guy in the room.”

On the other hand, Brent Scowcroft also gets quoted:  “I look at the result of our national security policy and I’m pretty pleased so far.”

Second, although Cooper doesn't come out and say it bluntly, the NSC staff seems dissatisfied with Jones' lack of workplace intensity, which leads to this priceless exchange:

General Jones described that behind-the-scenes “teeing up” process as an example of how he could be helpful to the president. He maintained his cool even when asked about sniping from staff members that he went biking at lunchtime and left work early, although he did, at one point, seem about to crush his coffee cup.

“I’m here by 7 o’ clock in the morning, and I go home at 7, 7:30 at night; that’s a fairly reasonable day if you’re properly organized,” he said. What about officials who pride themselves on being at the White House deep into the night?

“Congratulations,” he said. “To me that means you’re not organized.”  (emphasis added)

Despite the obnoxiousness of the last remark, I have to side with Jones here.  The perception -- aided and abetted by The West Wing -- is that unless you're staying at your White House office until the early hours of the morning, you're not really working that hard.  That is a massive deterrent for aspiring policymakers with concurrent aspirations of a home life from entering government service. 

Still, what's truly interesting here is that Cooper is picking up this kind of backbiting from the NSC staff.

Developing...

Ever since Barack Obama was elected, I've received myriad queries about whether I'm going into the administration.  And, for a variety of reasons, my answer has always been, "no, not interested." 

After reading Ryan Lizza's profile of Rahm Emanuel in The New Yorker, however, I must confess that there is one job that I would do for free: 

I noticed that over [Emanuel's] left shoulder, on the credenza behind him, was an official-looking name plate, which he said was a birthday present from his two brothers. It read “Undersecretary for Go F**k Yourself.”

Now that's my kind of job.  It's a bit senior for me, though.  If asked to serve, I would consider the stepping stone to that position -- Deputy Assistant Secretary for Eat S**t and Die. 

From Amie Parnes' Politico story about internecine Clinton conflicts at the State Department:   

Sources familiar with the vetting process say Clinton is playing a role in the decisions and wants to keep some familiar faces around.

Cheryl Mills, who served as Clinton’s general counsel and played a major role in post-campaign operations, is likely to be named Clinton’s chief of staff, sources tell Politico. Clinton campaign aides credit Mills with helping to “bring order” to the Clinton campaign last year.

Seriously?  This was Mills' great achievement? 

By that standard, I look forward to the appointments of Richard Gere as ambassador to India, John Thain as undersecretary of state for economic affairs, and Alex Rodriguez as goodwill ambassador for baseball.