The Quiet Americans
STELZER, IRWIN M.
The Quiet Americans Our mute ambassadors in Europe. BY IRWIN M. STELZER London IT'S NOT MY JOB to get George I Bush reelected," snorted a -L. senior State Department officer when asked why he...
...In Europe, Powell is incontestably the most popular member of the president's foreign policy team...
...Those, say Farish's friends, are not the ambassador's natural habitat...
...He has, in essence, privatized the defense of American policy...
...Indeed, some damn him with faint praise...
...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...
...Unfortunately, the hearts and minds we are fighting for in Britain don't reside at Buckingham Palace...
...Or, in this day and age, being filmed in the embassy, or holding in-the-com-pound seminars to influence important policymakers...
...is having a hard time selling itself...
...diplomat Robert Cooper, columnist William Pfaff...
...one possibility is to marshal the numerous expatriate Americans living and working abroad...
...What is to be done...
...This important international businessman is vaguely aware that the U.S...
...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...
...ambassador was a real estate developer in an earlier life, but can't recall his name...
...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...
...Better that than the present condition—in which America has unilaterally disarmed in the battle to explain our values and our goals...
...and the left-wing plays on offer here just the right fare with which to end a not-too-hard day at the office...
...All of which raises the more important question: Where is Colin Powell when we and the president need him...
...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...
...policy publicly and vigorously...
...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...
...Finally, there is more to diplomacy these days than quiet talks out of public view...
...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...
...the political opinion magazine Encounter and crucial alliances with leading intellectuals...
...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...
...embassy...
...policy in the multiple fora in which foreign policy issues are debated...
...for another, to treat the media as irredeemably opposed to U.S...
...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...
...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...
...In which case—call me old fash-ioned—resignation would be the honorable course...
...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...
...version...
...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...
...policy is to surrender without a fight...
...The battle is being fought in seminars, on op-ed pages, on talk shows, on television panel programs, and over dinner tables...
...How the mighty have fallen from 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...
...What else are all of those thousands of employees in the great capitals of Europe and in Foggy Bottom there for...
...civilian and military personnel under his control...
...I don't mean to single out Farish...
...And the willingness of Great Britain to continue the special relationship in this fraught time has to be more Blair than Farish...
...And I am told by a very politically attuned Italian entrepreneur that our situation in Italy is no better than in Britain and Germany...
...or, more likely, they disagree with it to such an extent that they feel it intellectually dishonest to defend the president's position...
...So one doesn't have to be a conspiracy theorist to guess that there is some centrally directed policy at work here...
...But our diplomats just won't make the effort necessary to explain America's positions to Europeans who might be willing to listen...
...Britain's ambassadors to Washington know this well...
...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...
...Then, they point out, we had "the Congress for Cultural Freedom...
...James, is nowhere to be seen— or heard...
...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...
...It is possible, of course, that the secretary's popularity exists precisely because he refuses to defend U.S...
...But rather than take to the airwaves and the print media to defend American policy—his New Year's Day oped piece in the New York Times being a rather bland exception—our secretary of state generally confines himself to private meetings with world leaders...
...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...
...But to view the media as uniformly and permanently hostile is wrong...
...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...
...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...
...is a shambles, according to both Republican and Democratic lawmakers, State Department officials and independent experts...
...the muted version of market capitalism more agreeable than the red-in-tooth-and-claw U.S...
...But it shouldn't stop them from conducting many activities from the safety of their embassies...
...Ambassador Coats does not speak German, and hence cannot participate in radio or television debates or university seminars...
...The purpose is to show that there is more than one side—the anti-American side—to the issues troubling Europeans...
...The government's public-relations drive to build a favorable impression abroad...
...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...
...But enough hand-wringing...
...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...
...And, yes, that will inevitably limit their freedom of movement somewhat...
...Besides, most British media are irredeemably hostile to American policies, and are beyond persuading...
...Add to that Ged-min'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...
...Despite the intrinsic weakness of the position he was required to take by Tony Blair's pro-euro policy, he held his ground...
...Sure, in this day and age our ambassadors need protection from terror attacks...
...My own experience in Britain suggests that won't work...
...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...
...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...
...For one thing, Britain's highest-circulation newspaper, the Sun, may be the most pro-American publication in the world...
...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...
...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...
...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...
...The Ford Foundation and other charitable organizations were enlisted in a concerted effort to portray American culture in a fair and positive light...
...Now, America's rhetorical guns have fallen silent or, at best, been reduced to a whisper...
...senior State Department officer when asked why he wasn't speaking out to defend the president's foreign policy...
...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...
...Perhaps...
...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...
...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...
...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...
...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...
...Besides, even if Powell does choose to avoid taking to the field himself with meaningful frequency, he could order his troops to do so...
...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...
...Others on the ground say they see little sign of any systematic defense of U.S...
...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 entree to royal circles unrivalled by any previous U.S...
...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...
...James...
...Even the ambassador's defenders admit that public speaking is not his long suit...
...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...
...They might not be able to walk the length of the land as did Bill Clinton's appointee to Britain, Philip Lader...
...That leaves the model of expatriate engagement that Jeff Gedmin—who styles himself a "combative intellectu-al"—has put together at the Aspen Institute, Berlin...
...Powell, on the other hand, is the acceptable face of the Bush doctrine...
...Israel's representatives here are typically all over the British media when the usual pro-Palestinian stories hit...
...Indeed, one businessman, who had during earlier administrations regularly been invited to various seminars and meetings with our commercial attache 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...
...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...
Vol. 9 • January 2004 • No. 18
