The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2006

now believe it was a profound mis- take, looking at what has happened there since and the terrible costs we’re paying in terms of lives lost, huge resources wasted, terrorism increased and major problems unat- tended to. I think history will judge the war as one of the biggest blunders in our lifetime. This administration seems to have no notion of real costs and focuses on would-be catastrophic consequences, which may occur but are thoroughly difficult to analyze or foresee. Obviously, we all hope we will be able to leave Iraq in one piece and reasonably stable, and that the war and its results will have an impact in the long run on the democratization of the region. I am not smart enough to know, but I’m not optimistic, because I remain skeptical that we know what we are doing. There are always major problems of consisten- cy and hypocrisy, of course, where promoting democracy is concerned. We are still supporting regimes like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, albeit for understandable reasons; but that sends mixed signals to the rest of the region. FSJ: Last year, in a National Interest magazine article titled “In Defense of Striped Pants,” you said: “Career professionals are being most loyal when they are being candid with their bosses about situations and when they press for a serious exami- nation of policy. ... At this time, the country has a particular need for pre- serving candor in the departments and a variety of viewpoints from dif- ferent agencies.” Yet use of the Dissent Channel has fallen sharply in recent years, as has the number of nominations for AFSA’s four constructive dissent awards. Do you have any sense of what accounts for the decline in dissent? Any sug- gestions for how the Foreign Service can revive it? 36 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 6