The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat by Vali Nasr, Doubleday, 320 pages
A good insider’s account of a presidential administration can take many forms. These memoirs are always a little difficult to swallow because there is usually the gnawing sense that the author wants to polish a legacy. Persons selected to work at the highest levels of government are not chosen solely on merit. There is an understanding that rewards for years of service come in the form of exclusive positions in government. To that end memoirs cannot be taken at face value. Readers must review a culmination of several works – not all necessarily memoirs – to discern which is fact and which parts have been polished. Dr. Vali Nasr’s new book is an addition to that collection of part fact, part polished legacy.
Dr. Nasr’s, The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat, is an excellent follow up to his previous treatment on Shia culture and religion. He examines where American foreign policy has been, is now, and where it will be from the point of view of the State Department, White House, United States military, and regional actors in the Middle East and Asia. To do this he discusses the roles that the President and his staff, Secretary of State Clinton and Ambassador Holbrooke, American generals, and foreign heads of state have played in the American government’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Infighting occurs in every administration, but there is little doubt that in Dr. Nasr’s treatment of the push and pull among various government agencies that the State Department is the protagonist. Both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Holbrooke are depicted as far seeing, sober diplomats. He depicts Mr. Holbrooke in the following way:
[He] held fast to American values. He was an idealist in the garb of a pragmatic operator. I never ceased to be astounded by his energy and drive; he was tireless in pursuit of his goals and relentless in standing up for American interests and values. In the words of his close friend and veteran diplomat… ‘he was the unquiet American’ who believed that America was a force for good in the world.
Mrs. Clinton was also given glowing reviews. She knew when to push Obama to, “go ahead with the Abbottabad operation to kill or capture Osama bin Laden” and “[break] with the Pentagon to advocate using American air power in Libya”; she was always, “tough on national security issues.” Though, there is no evidence that President Obama needed to be cajoled into moving forward with the Bin Laden operation. Further, there is no consideration by Mr. Nasr of whether these last two points on Mrs. Clinton’s “toughness” were prudent recomendations. At the same time the government’s top diplomat was, “hugely successful in capturing the attention of Pakistanis…Her willingness to invest time in the relationship and engage the country’s media, civil society, youth, and businessmen provided a palpable new dynamism in the troubled relationship.”
It is here that the reader must start piecing together information from other sources. The government’s diplomats did work tirelessly; and a President – and his staff – set on taking a military approach can’t make the job of diplomacy any easier, but America’s standing in Afghanistan and Pakistan does not mirror the praise that Dr. Nasr is heaping upon them. For example, Mrs. Clinton’s role in our departure from Iraq is considered negligible and so is her role in Afghanistan. Further, the American government’s relationship with Pakistan is nowhere near the working relationship it was in 2008 and the war footing with Iran has not shifted towards diplomacy.
There were tangible results however, such as Mr. Holbrooke’s and Mrs. Clinton’s success in negotiating the reopening of a border crossing between India and Pakistan. But Dr. Nasr’s book is diminished to the extent that he does not extend any criticism to the State Department. He portrays the President’s “Berlin Wall” of young advisors brought over from his campaign as childish politicos. Neither do the generals receive a proper treatment. They come across like the cartoonish General Decker from the movie Mars Attacks: “We have to strike now Sir! Annihilate. Kill! Kill! Kill!”
Even mild criticism of the failures of the State Department’s diplomacy would have made the critiques of the other agencies more credible. The real disappointment in this regard is that the reader may have some cursory knowledge about the failures of the White House to push for diplomacy, but it is difficult to discern the extent of that failure from Dr. Nasr’s account.
At the outset and then throughout the book, Dr. Nasr makes two interesting points about our Middle East allies’ advice for averting prolonged military commitment in Afghanistan and the military’s push to continue the fight over the objections the State Department.
To make the first point Mr. Nasr allows our Middle East allies to speak for themselves. The author calls it “a week in September” and it is an excellent example of the benefits of communication, necessary alliances, and containment. During the summer of 2009 Messrs. Holbrooke and Nasr has a series of meetings at the United Nations with US government allies about troop plans for Afghanistan. All of the ministers they met with sang a familiar tune: your plans are going to create more trouble than you realize; pay local warlords to maintain stability. Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmad Abu Ghaith explained that his government would support the plan but, that continued, direct, military involvement would, “only help the terrorists” and in a prescient quip which would apply to most countries from Morocco to Saudi Arabia, Abu Ghaith stated, “All the talk amongst youth now is of going to Afghanistan for jihad against the Americans.” Another Arab foreign minister similarly thought the American government was in “la-la land with our talk of building democracy and a strong civil society” and strongly urged that it, “buy local warlords to keep al-Qaeda out of Afghanistan”. The foreign minister estimated that the price tag would be 20 billion – one fifth of what is spent in Afghanistan, “Spend that and then just go home!” At some point, their attempt to “sell” – Dr. Nasr’s word, not mine – the plan becomes farcical. By the time of the third or fourth meeting with a minister from a Middle Eastern country Mr. Holbrooke’s ask lost some of its punch, but as Dr. Nasr explains, “Holbrooke was always a loyal soldier. It was his job to sell our plan. And he tried.” Yet despite Mr. Holbrooke’s enthusiasm to sell the plan he had no luck as the rounds continued. “You can pay to end this war… It will cost you one billion dollars, no fighting needed.” And as if giving two of the government’s highest ranking diplomats a lesson in geopolitics, this Arab minister explained that they were fighting the wrong war, “You should talk to the Taliban, not fight them. That will help you with Iran”. When they finally met with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia he had similar advice: it was necessary to look at the root of the Taliban problem. Talk to them. Use improved relations with the Taliban as a hedge against Iran.
Their unresponsive reaction to Mr. Holbrooke’s proposal does not necessarily mean it should be followed. All countries act on the premise that they must do what is in their best interest. However, the combination of warnings and admonitions from allies and the predilection for the Obama administration to focus on strictly military solutions were two of the heavily criticized areas of Obama’s foreign policy.
According to Dr. Nasr, President Obama was the weathervaner-in-chief:
It was to court public opinion that Obama first embraced the war in Afghanistan. And when public opinion changed, he was quick to declare victory and call the troops back home. His actions from start to finish were guided by politics and they played well at home.
And quite frankly, domestic, considerations were affecting the prosecution of the war and the assistance the American government was going to receive from allies:
But abroad, the stories we tell to justify our on-again, off-again approach to this war do not ring true to friend or foe. They know the truth: that we are leaving Afghanistan to its own fate. Leaving even as the demons of regional chaos that first beckoned us there are once again rising to threaten our security.
Not surprisingly, as the President’s commitment to counterinsurgency (COIN) increased, the focus and commitment to programs recommended by the State Department shifted from serving Afghan civil society to serving COIN operations. Mr. Holbrooke’s fiery commitment to farmers in a country where eight out of ten people depend on agriculture never made much headway with the White House. Aid, talking points, and energy from the government, all went to support COIN. It is not the intention here to recommend one method over another. Whether the policy is increased COIN, aid to farmers, extrication from the region, etc. is for American’s to demand – how this is to be achieved is for another time. The purpose of this review is to give the reader a glimpse into particular cross section of the prosecution of the war in Afghanistan.
Dr. Nasr has a very digestible writing style. Having worked in and out of government, at Johns Hopkins, Brookings Institution, and the State Department he can easily explain his prescriptions to the reader. His knowledge of grand strategy and understanding of minor details enables him to explain very broad and incredibly specific ideas, occasionally in the same paragraph.
This book has a lot to offer the reader. Not only does it detail the how government bureaucracies compete with one another, but it is also an excellent insider’s account into the day-to-day of a diplomat’s work. From Dr. Nasr’s account he spent more time negotiating with the White House (read the president’s staff) than he did with foreign representatives. The author presents a somewhat biased account of person’s dedicated to the Middle East; however, reading Dr. Nasr’s new book will give the reader another perspective into the operations of the State Department.
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