Serving with Dissent

This evening I took a walk down to Olsson’s Books, a DC area bookstore chain, to attend a discussion with John Brady Kiesling who was in town to promote his new book, “Diplomacy Lessons: Realism for an Unloved Superpower.”

Kiesling was a fairly senior Foreign Service Officer who made a bit of a splash when he resigned from the Department of State in 2003 over the United States’ planned invasion of Iraq. At the time Kiesling was Political Counselor for the American Embassy at Athens. It’s a nice position and one that many FSOs would be envious of.

I can’t really discuss the quality of the book because I haven’t read it yet, but I found Kiesling’s story to be engaging and informative. Obviously, he has serious issues with our current administration and their handling of foreign affairs, but he didn’t come across as bitter and even admitted that he thinks he could have handled his departure a bit better (his letter of resignation was published by The New York Times.) Kiesling is out speaking not only to sell his book, but also because he believes that our image abroad has been seriously hurt and one of the main reasons is that many in power at the moment have forgotten some of the basic rules of diplomacy: people the world around have generally the same goals and aspirations, bilateral always works better than unilateral, blunders in how Iraq have been handled have hurt our efforts at all other aspects of diplomacy.

At times I thought Kiesling seemed to be holding back. I couldn’t tell if it was because he felt uncomfortable being totally frank — he admitted that it was difficult to be blunt after 20 years of learning to speak “diplomatically” — or because he was afraid that if he gave away too much we wouldn’t buy the book. He did do a great job at fielding a wide variety of questions. His background certainly paid off there. Many in the audience seemed to take this as a time to ask every foreign policy question they’ve ever had and to rehash whatever they heard from the political pundits the night before. My favorite question went something like, “You mentioned terrorists earlier. Those people in Iran took over the American Embassy and some people blew up those places in Africa. Kenya, I think? What is that all about?”

I was a little nervous going to the discussion because I was afraid he might be very bitter toward the Foreign Service and that if he learned I was a newly starting officer, he’d throw rocks at me. Quite the contrary, he made it abundently clear that he thinks the Foreign Service is one of our government’s best organizations and the one best able to make a positive change around the world. A retired FSO in the crowd asked Kiesling what he would say to someone contemplating joining, but didn’t agree with current administration policies. Kiesling firmly believed that shouldn’t affect one’s decision. At the lower ranks (like myself) you have very little connection to policy decisions anyway and administrations come and go. Kiesling was hired under Reagan, but served under Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II, not to mention many different Secretaries of State.

Those who have to live with the impact of foreign policy understand the importance of strong diplomacy. We’ll be the ones walking the streets of Lagos, Athens, Kiev, and Beirut. Hopefully, those in power will keep that in mind when making decisions.