The last redoubt of the thwarted policy wonk

Posted By Daniel W. Drezner Wednesday, July 22, 2009 - 4:05 PM

The implicit message in Steve Walt's ten commandments for foreign policy wonks is that if you dare to violate any of these commandments, ~~the Council on Foreign Relations~~ ~~Henry Kissinger~~ God will strike you down with a mark and brand you for life as unworthy of wonkdom.

Some of Walt's commandments hold, and some of them don't (who's getting pilloried on Cuba nowadays?), but there's an important corollary to these commandments that needs to be highlighted:

If thou hast deviated from the consensus of the foreign policy community, thou shalt go to the tallest mountain, and rend one's clothing, and scream from the top of thine lungs like Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes/Soylent Green, and declare that the mark of transgression itself is proof that thou must be right.