The Foreign Service Journal, September 2013

48 SEPTEMBER 2013 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL consequences if they failed to hold up their end of the peace accord. I then explained that giving the GRM this aid when it was not meeting its obligations under the peace accord would make Lake’s words meaningless. It took her about a nanosecond to figure this out, and so she told State to send me new instruc- tions. State did so, and then I got to call up the minister in question and tell him we were not signing or going ahead with aid, and why. In hindsight, was dissenting the right choice? It was the right choice because the GRM got the message and understood we were serious. For whatever reason, they went ahead with demobilization, the elections were held on schedule and the peacekeeping operation was a success. It most certainly was the right choice for the time. The head of the United Nations peacekeeping operation, Aldo Ajello, said that without my interventions and public statements, the whole process probably would have failed. Did your dissent lead to any change in policy? It did, but only because I appealed to Susan Rice after my advice was ignored by State. I don’t know who at State was pushing such a senseless and spineless policy. I can only assume USAID wanted to go ahead with it because they had done the paperwork to make the transfer and saw no reason to attempt to use it as leverage. What was the impact of the dissent on your career? That is hard to say. It didn’t hurt as far as I could tell; my next assignment was as ambassador to Peru, followed by a year at the Carter Center, then retirement. I don’t know if the Bureau of African Affairs would have held it against me had I wanted another job there. I would like to think not, since Mozambique turned out to be a success. What was the impact on your career of being recognized with an AFSA dissent award? It probably helped. But again, being right or on the right side of history is probably the most important thing. If you dis- sent and then appear to be wrong because of what happens, or if the outcome is unclear, dissent might not do you much good. I suppose it also depends on how high the profile of the issue is. If one had dissented on invading Iraq, it would not have mat- tered that you were right. Your career would be over regardless. Even pointing out the stupidity of a policy as important as Iraq earns the wrath of the system rather than any positive recogni- tion. Look at what they tried to do to Peter Van Buren. While Van Buren did take his dissent public, I believe he did so only after he saw that pointing out the waste, fraud and inef- fectiveness of the Provincial Reconstruction Team projects was not going to change anything. The overreaction of the system to his book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People —even though he went through the proper clearance procedure—indicates what happens when you take on a policy that Washington feels compelled to sup- port, and you go public. When dissenters see their dissent having no effect, they face difficult choices: support a policy with which they disagree or try to implement it in a way that makes it less objectionable (if possible); go public and risk retribution; resign in protest; or get a transfer to another part of the world where the policy is not so objectionable. I suppose the bottom line is that people ought to think through the implications of their dissent and what their options are if they are ignored. I had the opportunity to change the policy, but that was because I was willing and able to go to the NSC, and Susan Rice was the kind of person to recognize what needed to be done and did it. n Dennis Jett is a founding faculty member and professor of interna- tional affairs at the School of International Affairs at Pennsylvania State University. A former career diplomat, he served 28 years in the State Department in a wide range of positions including as ambas- sador to Peru, ambassador to Mozambique, senior director for African affairs on the National Security Council, deputy chief of mis- sion and chargé d’affaires in Malawi and Liberia, and in Argentina and Israel. From 2000 to 2008, he was dean of the International Center and on the faculty of the Political Science Department at the University of Florida. He is the author of two books: Why Peacekeeping Fails , and Why American Foreign Policy Fails , and has written more than 130 opinion pieces for major newspapers, the more recent of which can be found on his Huffington Post blog. He is currently at work on a book about ambassadors—where they come from, where they go, and why they still matter. “Being right, or on the right side of history, is probably the most important thing.” –Dennis Jett