The Foreign Service Journal, June 2003

holes for senior-level time and ener- gy. As a case in point, while senior- level Bush-appointed State and DOD officials surely had political/ideologi- cal differences with the Clinton administration team, they would not have suggested their predecessors lacked intelligence or energy. Thus their inability to conclude a Middle East peace despite enormous effort suggested that it belonged in the “too hard” box. Other complicated issues such as terrorism were to be “man- aged” — solving them was just too expensive fiscally and politically to justify the effort. All of this changed with 9/11. Although the Clinton administration was well aware of Osama bin Laden/al-Qaida connections to the USS Cole attack and the assaults on our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, it calculated that the correct approach was to “manage” the terror- ism problem. With proverbial 20/20 hindsight, who would not have done more? Yet who in 1998 would have supported a mission comparable to that undertaken in Afghanistan three years later? As our calculation of risk has changed, so, too, has our willingness to pay the price. It was not that Saddam was a uniquely unpleasant individual or Iraq a uniquely unpleas- ant regime. It was the conjunction of S P E A K I N G O U T 14 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U N E 2 0 0 3 There is no indication that any of the three FSOs used the Dissent Channel. SHORT TERM FURNISHED APARTMENTS AVAILABLE columbia plaza apartments Capital Living With Comfort and Convenience Beautiful, Spacious Efficiencies, 1 and 2 Bedrooms SEVEN MINUTES TO STATE DEPARTMENT Utilities Included Complimentary Voice Mail Courtyard Style Plaza Polished Hardwood Floors Private Balconies Huge Walk-In Closets 24 Hour Front Desk Garage Parking Available Shopping on Site Cardkey Entry/Access River Views Minutes to Fine Dining Walk to the Kennedy Center and Georgetown Minutes to Foggy Bottom Metro (202) 293-2000 2400 Virginia Ave., N.W. Washington, D.C., 20037 Managed by Polinger, Shannon & Luchs Co.