Sam Stone posted this argument recently as well, to which I responded as follows:
This is a good point, and it helps explain the strengths and weakness of the WDC policy. When someone like Chirac or Annan horns in and starts telling the President how he ought to handle Iraq, the more usual response would be to politely discuss it with them or maybe even negotiate with them. I think a dose of WDC is healthy. Neither of them earned the right to sit at the table. Next time perhaps they’ll be more cooperative with US interests. Sometimes negotiation goes better with a bit of rudeness.
Well, I don’t remember any claim that Saddam would use WMDs against us. I agree that there was a risk that he might use them.
AZCowboy has it right: the fact they didn’t use WMDs is prima facie evidence that Bush was lying. Through his teeth. In all of our faces.
He doesn’t care, but we should.
december: When someone like Chirac or Annan horns in and starts telling the President how he ought to handle Iraq, the more usual response would be to politely discuss it with them or maybe even negotiate with them.
Given that Kofi Annan is the leader of an international organization of which the US is a member, and whose charter—including its vows to promote peace and justice, and to eschew the use of armed force except in the common interest—the US has solemnly undertaken to uphold, then yes, I would hope that the “usual response” for a President of the US would be to “politely discuss” or even “negotiate” matters that such a leader considers important.
I think a dose of WDC is healthy.
Why?
Neither of them earned the right to sit at the table.
“Earned the right”? You mean, because they didn’t support a war that they didn’t approve of? I.e., if you refuse to agree with me, you’ve forfeited your right to criticize me? Is that kind of logic really likely to impress anybody?
Next time perhaps they’ll be more cooperative with US interests. Sometimes negotiation goes better with a bit of rudeness.
Sounds completely like wishful thinking to me. When other people tell you that they don’t care about your opinion and you don’t have any “right” to “horn in”—on matters that in your view are very much your business—does that rudeness really incline you to be “more cooperative” with them? Or do you just tend to think that they’re arrogant selfish jerks who don’t care what happens to anyone else as long as they can get what they want?
It is perfectly possible to be determined and courageous without being contemptuous or rude. This so-called “policy” of “we don’t care”, on the other hand, sounds merely like an attempt to make contemptuous rudeness look cool. I wouldn’t exactly call that “foreign policy for grown-ups”.
We are unaccostomed to see American leaders using the stick as well as the carrot. But, why not use both? We’re not talking about military action against Kofi and Jacques, but just ignoring them.
No, we’re just unaccustomed to seeing incompetence and dishonesty flaunted without shame.
december, that is absolutely revisionist. The issue wasn’t that he might use them. They were a threat. A real threat. To us. Let me remind you of some of the comments from Dubya and others in the administration:
Have you really forgotten all of this?
december: We’re not talking about military action against Kofi and Jacques, but just ignoring them.
So as long as we don’t actually undertake military action against somebody, they have nothing to complain about? :rolleyes: You are not inspiring a whole lot of confidence in your understanding of international diplomacy, december, despite your earnest quotations from unidentified management-theory handbooks.
For one thing, you don’t seem to see any difference between firmness and rudeness. It’s one thing to put “stick”-type pressure on your ally by saying “if you cannot support us in our chosen course of action, we will regretfully be forced to” etc. etc. It requires finesse to avoid the appearance of bullying, but it’s a perfectly legitimate diplomatic maneuver and (contrary to your assertion) we see American leaders do it all the time.
It’s quite another thing to gratuitously piss off allies by saying “if you cannot support us in our chosen course of action, we don’t care, because your opinion doesn’t matter to us.” It doesn’t say or accomplish a damn thing that couldn’t be better said or accomplished without such contemptuous rudeness. It is not how adults do business together.
You’d be surprised how adults do business. The smartest, most successful businessman I was ever close to was the late Dr. Henry Singleton. He was originally a brilliant research physicist, and later a self-made billionaire. At one meeting, Singleton asked a branch manager why he was selling business at a loss. “We have to eat,” was the response. In other words, he needed a certain volume of business to keep an office running.
Singleton shot back, “I don’t care if you starve!” Meaning, it’s not acceptible to lose stockholders’ money just so that employees will have something to do. That was quite a bit ruder than President Bush ignoring Kofi Annan. Singleton got the message across so vividly that I still remember it 27 years later. You can well imagine that I didn’t intentionally sell business at a loss throughout my tenure at Singleton’s company.
december, with your usual instinct for an inapt analogy, you’re using as a model for international diplomacy an anecdote of a corporate CEO talking to his own employees.
Diplomacy is not about how you talk to the people who work for you (although there are plenty of successful and brilliant businesspeople who can accomplish that without rudeness too). Diplomacy is how you talk to the people who are presumed, by the norms of national sovereignty and international law, to be your equals and partners in the tasks of protecting the safety and prosperity of the world.
You personally may be perfectly comfortable with the idea of Bush treating the President of France or the Secretary-General of the United Nations like a CEO yelling at one of his branch managers. But you should not be surprised that many other people—many Americans included—would consider it an unacceptable, unprofessional, immature display of arrogance.
In this era of the first global capitalist empire and after the acquisition of Iraq, I fear december has chanced across (in his analogy) a perception (beginning to be made a reality) that either of us would wish to acknowledge, at least in as far as things are viewed from parts of this administration - it may not be the world as we want it to be, or as we have seen it historically, but there are some in power who don’t think so very differently from this analogy, IMHO: The Brave New World (Order) …
Hey, give ol’ GeeDubya some credit! This is both bold and innovative. Admit it, would Bill Clinton have ever thought of raising the hissy fit to a geopolitical stratagem? I think not!
No, neither december’s analogy nor your projection of it stand up.
The president of company A doesn’t say to the president of company B:
“You’re either with us or against us, do as we say or you get fired”
and rationally expect any response other than:
“Are you on crack?”
The analogy is with one’s own employee’s, not another company. And my point is about the blurring of boundaries (in this new post-9/11 paradigm), about new philosophies / creeds blossoming and this new diplomatic language / approach.
The analogy site well with the beliefs of how the US should now operate as per the views of some in this administration, notably, IMHO, Cheney and Rumsfeld. It ain’t my view, it’s my view of their personal perspectives.
Aside from that, you were close.
Yes, see, but the rest of the world’s nations don’t see themselves as the US’s employees.
December& Ilk do see the rest of the world as such. Other leaders, not even the leader of the UN(!), aren’t worthy of sitting at the same table as the Holy American Emperor.
Maybe, if they do as they are told, they may earn that right.
You were the one who compared international relations with “how business is done.”
You’d be surprised. My boss was once approached by a tycoon who wanted to buy one of Dr. Singleton’s companies. When my boss passed on the offer, Singleton told him that he didn’t negotiate purchases that way. He said, anyone who wanted to buy one of his companies should hand him a contract with a cashier’s check. If Singleton liked the offer, he would cash the check and sign the contract.
In effect, Singleton was saying that he would not trust this tycoon to keep his word. This was not polite, but it was good business.
It was typical of Singleton to say just what he thought. Dealing with Singleton wasn’t always pleasant, but at least you alway knew where you stood.
Note that Bush has been a businessman, which is uncommon for a national leader. Maybe that background makes him more likely to speak his mind.
No doubt, diplomacy is often about how you talk to people. But IMHO how you talk is a means to an end. Your goal is to get them to do what you want (and theirs is to get you to do what they want.) One shouldn’t merely assume that a certain polite type of discourse is the best way to achieve this end. I agree that politeness is usually best, but not always.
Again, you have cut to the center of this debate. Annan and Chirac are presumed to be Bush’s equals and partners, but in fact, they are neither.
That’s not what I said. I merely explained how business really is done.
I agree. That’s why we’re having this debate.
Evidence has now come out indicating that Chirac was secretly supporting Saddam, including giving him certain confidential info regarding US policy. Whether or not this case is proved, let’s assume for the purpose of this debate that Chirac had been secretly working against the US interest while pretending to be a friend. Now Chirac offers to get involved in designing the post-war structure. How should Bush respond to such chutzpah?
I’m having difficulty parsing those paragraphs. Are “my boss” and “Singleton” the same person? If so, why do they converse with each other? If not, why was “my boss” approached about the purchase of “one of Dr. Singleton’s companies”?
The title “businessman” is a complete wank. A used car salesman can describe himself as a businessman. Ken Lay is/was a businessman.
A more useful term might be “successful businessman”, and often that’s just a synonym for “someone who hasn’t been convicted yet”.
This is indeed central to the views you so often profess on this board.
You seem to think of this man as some kind of demi-god.
Time after time you jump up to proclaim your faith, you denounce dissidents as heretics and you spread the holy word, as spoken by his demi-angels. Often you even come up with stuff yourself, twisting reality so it fits your faith.
December, could you please explain to us why Bush is not just another man in a suit?
Why should we, as lesser non-American beings and heretical anti-americans, prostrate ourselves before this man?
What exactly is it that makes him holy to you? What is it we don’t see?
My boss was president of a company owned by Singleton’s conglomerate. The tycoon approached my boss because he knew him, but didn’t know Singleton. Singleton’s response was a kind of “we don’t care.” Singleton indicated no desire to ever meet this tycoon. He had no particular interest in selling a company to him.
Latro, the US is the world’s dominant power, both militarily and economically. Whether we like it or not, the President of the United States is the most powerful person in the world. France is well down the list in wealth and military might, no matter how high they rank in arrogance.
The UN has little power. Nor does Kofi Annan wield what power the UN possesses.
Who’s discussing how the world sees the US – this is about a reasonable analogy for a developing mind set of some in this US administration.
In any event, what the world thinks rather got left, bloodied and powerless, on the floor of the UN 6-7 weeks ago. How powerful do you think Chirac feels just at the moment ?
It’s about a philosophy which sees the unipower US political/military/capitalist empire as the dominant market player and to whom everyone (in the market place) is de facto subject.
At the moment, Bush is Caesar, and this new diplomatic approach is part of the reason: Venit Vidit Vicit