Opposing the groupthink lobby

The debate over the Chas Freeman appointment continues and it is worth briefly re-engaging because it frames several important points. The notion, argued by some critics of the potential appointment, that there is no room in the U.S. government for people who are skeptical of Israeli policies or for people who are not in lockstep with one view of say, Saudi Arabia, is both absurd and dangerous.

First, this is the U.S. government we are talking about, folks. Our interests very often align with those of Israel, but sometimes they do not. It would be helpful to have people in the government who know the difference. Indeed, as someone who has studied the policy making process of the U.S. government pretty closely, it is my sense that it always functions better — which is to say the president is always served best — when he has at his disposal a full range of views, when he is presented by informed choices. Groupthink is, as we all have seen fairly recently, one of the great dangers within any administration. So, too is bland think and policy made by people without the intellectual strengths, creativity, experience, and candor that Chas Freeman inarguably would bring to the NIC job.  

Further, however, a number of the "offending" quotes attributed to Freeman are taken out of context (as is the China quote in the WSJ op-ed yesterday) or are simply not representative of the full range of views offered by Freeman. His greatest strength is that he is not a reflexive thinker like so many in Washington, that despite all these efforts to the contrary he is not someone a fair-minded observer can easily pigeonhole in terms of his positions. This is due in part to the fact that he is not someone who is limited by having had experience in just one area of the world. In short, again, he is someone with precisely the background and temperament called for by the job.

But there is a bigger issue here. Let’s leave the Freeman question aside. Instead, let’s ask whether it is good for U.S. national interests to have a government comprised solely of people who share a set of views on key geopolitical issues? On this point, it’s probably instructive to begin with a look at the most recent Israeli election or any recent Israeli election for that matter. There is hardly unity among the Israelis on the core issues confronting their country. We’re somehow expecting American policymakers to offer more intellectual consistency on these questions than the Israelis themselves? But of course, our interests extend across the region.

Understanding and even effectively articulating the views of all the players in the Middle East will be essential to the formulation of sound U.S. policies.  There is no lasting peace in the Middle East that will be achieved by cleaving to the views of just one side or the other.

When, during the key moments of formulating U.S. policy on any international issue, has the U.S. government contained within its senior ranks an absolutely monolithic view? Debates over ideological and policy differences have been the crucible in which many of our biggest and best decisions have been forged. Indeed, smart presidents have used the differences to shape nuanced policies, to stress-test ideas and to build consensus.

Perhaps the best example is the Solarium Project, conceived by President Eisenhower to address the deep divisions within his own party as to whether the U.S. should aggressively confront the Soviets or whether we should take a different approach to containing and offsetting the threat they posed. He brought representatives of different viewpoints together and got them to exchange their views and together to shape policy options on which he could act. To be sure, he was in part helping to defuse pressures from some of the most extreme members of his party, but the conclusions helped form the foundation for policies that ultimately influenced in important ways how the U.S. won the Cold War. 

Throughout modern U.S. foreign policy history we have seen great divisions on all the big issues we have faced. General George Marshall walked out on a meeting with Harry Truman when considering statehood for Israel. Should the view that led him to do this have disqualified him — arguably America’s most revered 20th century secretary of state — from his government service? Today there are two very different schools of thought on the intentions and way to handle the government of Russia. There are similar divisions about how to handle China…as an invaluable strategic partner or as our greatest strategic threat. Similar differences also exist with regard to Pakistan. In each of these cases is there only to be one viewpoint allowed inside the U.S. government?

Not only is it dangerous and contrary to our interests to employ such litmus tests, it is not practical. Senior officials hold diverse views. Which Nixon or Kissinger do you allow into the U.S. government, the men who launched the secret war on Cambodia or the ones who sought détente with Russia and opening to China? Which Begin or Sadat, the warriors or the peacemakers? You get the idea. If we set a standard of ideological purity and consistency for senior officials that is as unyielding as some of Freeman’s critics seem to desire, then what will we end up with? Who will meet that standard? What kind of internal debate will we have in the government? What is the next step, to root out government officials whose views also deviate from what is desirable on key issues? Do we build a government in which no one has any sympathy or understanding for the views of Arabs or the Chinese?

Clearly such approaches would only damage the interests of the one group of people our government is supposed to serve…Americans.