The Foreign Service Journal, September 2007

When I arrived in Tashkent as British ambassador in August 2002, I was a 42-year-old career Diplomatic Service officer with about 20 years’ service. I was “Fast Stream,” and well thought of. My four overseas postings had run second secretary, first secretary, counselor, ambassador, which is not a bad record. It is perhaps significant that I had been selected to be ambassador before 9/11, when priorities for Uzbekistan and the other former Soviet republics were rather differ- ent. During the late 1990s I had been deputy high com- missioner (the equivalent of your deputy chief of mission position) in Accra, and was thought to have a particular expertise in democratization. In Ghana the U.K. financed and, in large part, managed free and fair elections that ended the 20-year rule of Jerry Rawlings and his party. I had led that process, incidentally with very good coopera- tion from our American colleagues. The Ghanaian elec- tions followed years of work on building media and civil society, and the country remains a tremendous model for the rest of Africa. In that regard, I recommend U.S. Ambassador Mark Palmer’s book Breaking the Real Axis of Evil to all serving diplomats. His position is underpinned by two basic tenets: “All people want freedom and can achieve it.” And: “In the sea of tyranny, a democratic embassy must be an island of liberty and a steady, and not always subtle, proponent of change.” Five False Principles I would most heartily endorse those assertions. Lamentably, however, I do not believe many embassies, British or American, follow them in practice. I also believe the Palmer approach has been set back by the “War on Terror.” That, I would argue, is due to embassies acting on the following “false principles,” which that war has brought to the fore: • Putting short-term expediency ahead of long-term interests; • Pursuing specific sectoral or commercial interests as the interest of your whole nation; F O C U S S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 7 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 43