Posted on 11/30/2005 5:39:29 AM PST by SJackson
While most of Washington was preoccupied with playing the blame game late last month, the Bush Administration took an apparent turn toward appeasement—or as its advocates would call it, “nuance” and “realism”—in Iraq and Afghanistan with the appointment of a high-level National Security Council official whose worldview more resembles that of the former President Bush than the current one.
As Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was winding down the investigation that resulted in the indictment of former Cheney Chief of Staff Scooter Libby on Oct. 28, Meghan O’Sullivan was elevated to the lofty position of Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan. This makes O’Sullivan equal in rank to fellow NSC staffer Elliott Abrams, and arguably gives her more influence than many assistant secretaries.
The timing of the promotion was particularly curious, as it came just weeks after the president made a bold step in the direction of moral clarity when articulating on October 6—for the first time—that the enemy we face is not just terrorism, but radical Islam. Yet if O’Sullivan’s career is defined by anything, it is a worldview colored with thousands of shades of gray, with barely a hint of black and white.
Before the Iraq war, O’Sullivan was the co-creator of the so-called “smart sanctions” that Saddam easily manipulated time and again, and after his regime fell, she was one of the most passionate defenders of senior Baathists. At other points in recent years, she has tacitly supported Islamists’ attempted takeover of the post-Saddam Iraqi education system, and she is widely seen as a leading advocate for engaging the Iranian mullahs.
That O’Sullivan does not see the world as President Bush does should come as little surprise, considering that her mentor is Richard Haass, currently the head of the Council on Foreign Relations and who was State Department policy director under Powell until 2003. She followed Haass from the left-leaning Brookings Institute in 2001, and while at Foggy Bottom, she echoed his calls for building warmer relations with the mullah-ocracy in Tehran.
At a July 2000 Brookings press conference moderated by Haass, O’Sullivan noted her sharp distaste for the “rogue regimes” designation because it was “pejorative,” and she complained that the rogue label suggested that countries that sponsor terrorism “were beyond rehabilitation and that the policy options (were limited) to only punitive ones.”
Though many in the foreign policy community in the late 1990’s had been lulled into what was believed to be a high-minded approach to tyrannies and terrorism, few were quite as steadfast in those beliefs immediately following September 11. O’Sullivan, however, was.
Just ten days after the attacks—and less than 24 hours after Bush’s famous address—O’Sullivan forcefully argued against the president’s moral clarity. At a panel discussion, she claimed that the “state sponsors of terrorism” label is counterproductive for fighting terrorism. She reasoned that some states’ support “involves simply letting groups come in and out of their territory to operate.” Though she did not mention him at all by name, it was a clear swipe at President Bush, who the previous night famously stated, “Any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.”
Most striking about O’Sullivan’s comments that day is that 9/11 actually strengthened her “nuanced” view of terrorism. She remarked, “I would say that this new environment provides an opportunity to unlump this category of countries.”
After joining the administration, O’Sullivan’s “nuance” led her to support both the Baathists and Islamists while serving in the Coalition Provisional Authority. She fiercely fought against removing Saddam’s henchmen from the new government, and she bitterly opposed the sweeping de-Baathification order signed by CPA Administrator Paul Bremer.
Yet while she sided with the Baathists, she also told the Islamist Dawa Party that the U.S. had no problem with it taking over the Ministry of Education, according to a former CPA official. Notes the official, “There was a real scramble to undue that damage.”
If O’Sullivan’s record, including her service in the Bush Administration, makes anything clear, it is that she represents the views of the very foreign policy establishment President Bush is attempting to challenge head-on. That mentality of stability at all costs and ignoring evil or simply calling it something less offensive is what helped create the world that made September 11 possible.
With both Iraq and Afghanistan in perilous positions, moral clarity would seem to be the one of the most important weapons in bringing long-term peace and freedom to those countries. But if President Bush really believes that, then why did Meghan O’Sullivan get promoted?
I'm guessing that before he leaves office, probably next years election time, a victory will be declared, and troops will start coming home.
She is a world class idiot. If the administration looks to her for serious advice or policy they will have gone to war for nothing.
Bush knows what he has to do with Iraq but simply doesn't know how to do it. Generals Sanchez and Abuzaid were feckless choices. Tenet was a failure. He kept on the pathetic Clarke. He moved too slowly to grasp the reins of power at the UN. His NSC is, with one exception, a field of weak reeds. He allowed Powell to rule a congress of leakers at the State Department, and Condoleeza Rice continues in the tradition of using questionably loyal satraps in that miserable "service". Why hasn't Rice cleaned up Consular Affairs?
The question is, who is giving Bush Middle East foreign policy advice? His father? The Brookings Institute? The Institute for Policy Studies? Rice may know something of Russia, but in the Middle East she is a graduate student who needs constant tutoring. Unlike Bush, one never had a doubt where Ronald Reagan stood, and his appointments mirrored that.
You can add to that list the Kerry supporter who has become one of Condi Rice's chief deputies at the State Dept.
Instead of taking the media head on, Bush is letting the media drive him. Reagan never did.
You can see it not only in Iraq but in Israel as well.
Like Clinton, instead of standing fast up to the end, as Reagan did, Bush is thinking about "legacy".
[legacy]
Not only his own, but Clinton's too...
I'll never forgive him for "washing" Clinton.
For anyone with questions about Iraq policy, please go to this link and read the National Security Council's "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/documents/Iraqnationalstrategy11-30-05.pdf
I look upon the FR naysayers much like I do the media they love and believe in! It is easy to see on which side these whiners stand!
LLS
Good for her. Kicking all the Baathists out has created a massive pool of resentment, which has fed the insurgency -- and deprived the government of experienced officials. MacArthur was smarter than Bremer. He refused calls to clean house in Japan. And his regency was much more successful than our occupation of Iraq has been so far.
I think you're right.
Or DOES SHE?
President Bush has recently shown zero resolve to deal with the other unfinished items in the War on Terror. Syria. North Korea. Iran. And his globalist initiatives, FTAA, CAFTA, and the LOST treaty are right down her alley...and his administration kept Thomas PM Barnett on at the Naval War College LONG after it was clear he was a complete loony tune. Only fired when he openly supported John Kerry over Bush during the election last year.
At the end of the day, Bush is a product of the time he came of age (1960s). We thank God for his modest demonstrations of resolve, and pray that he can become fully free of the wrong headedness so characteristic of those who have come of age during the near unreal atmosphere of utopianism which held sway, in the main, from 1945 to 2001.
Appeaser.
There MUST be more to this story than meets the eye because promoting a State Department scumbag Democrat like Meghan O’Sullivan makes no sense on its face.
My guess, we've decided to let Iran go nuclear, and deal with the mullahs. Syria, likely no confrontation there either. Political containment works, doesn't it? It worked with Sadaam.
No, still can't because your link doesn't work.
Can you sumarize what it has to say regarding O'Sullivan, particularly the wisdom of confronting Iran and Syria as opposed to dealing with them in a political context. As we did with Sadaam through the 90s
Yes. They never learn.
Good questions.
I know we need world peace, but I don't know how to achieve it either!!
Got that right.
Gee, the '60s must've been an awfully long decade.
He didn't crawl out of the beer keg until he turned 40.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.