The Belgravia Dispatch: A "Gang of Three" Containing the Damage Done?

April 06, 2007

A "Gang of Three" Containing the Damage Done?

Spurred on by commenters who thought this post too pessimistic (remember, I was flagging possibilities for reader input, not necessarily declaring any of my "A" through "F" certitudes), here's a silver lining as we survey the detritus wrought by the Bush Administration, courtesy of this piece in the FT.

In short, the thesis is a "Gang of Three" (Bob Gates, Condi Rice, and Hank Paulson) are working together well and putting the Administration on something of a corrective course, after the incredible outrages of the Cheney-Rumsfeld years. Meantime, Great Leader is bobbing about semi-cluelessly as is his wont, but perhaps taking more advice from the Gang of Three, the argument goes (see Chris Hill's North Korea diplomacy, for example, or Gates' sacking of riff-raff like "Cully" Stimson, a personage who would have been roundly feted during the bygone Rummy years, rather than quickly shown the door, or too Gates quick personnel changes when the Walter Reed outrages came to light).

Money quotes:

It has become conventional wisdom to say that no one has left the Bush administration with their reputation higher than when they joined it. With approval ratings for President George W. Bush languishing at stubbornly low levels for almost two years, even close friends openly doubt whether he can restore his fortunes.
But three senior Bush officials, two of them relatively new to their jobs, are operating as though they believe they can still leave office in January 2009 with higher standing. The trio in question – Bob Gates, defence secretary, Hank Paulson, Treasury secretary and Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state – are playing a quiet but central role in pushing through what one official described as a “course correction”.

Their growing co-operation on key issues was most dramatically illustrated last month when Ms Rice persuaded Mr Paulson to swallow the Treasury Department’s doubts about unfreezing $25m (€19m, £12.7m) worth of North Korean accounts in order to free the way for the six-party nuclear deal with Pyongyang to proceed. Ms Rice said she spent several hours talking it through with Mr Paulson. She also managed to gain Mr Gates’s support to by-pass Washington’s normal interagency process for big policy decisions – most critically to circumvent Dick Cheney, the vice-president, who remains opposed to diplomatic engagement with rogue regimes....

...“It is as though this gang of three has been grafted on to the body of the Bush administration,” said a senior official from the former Clinton administration. “It is an alien graft that ought to be rejected but which has nevertheless started taking over the body.” [emphasis added]

Yes, there are quite a few issues with this rosy thesis. For one, the corrective action may well be of the far too little, too late variety. Two, Cheney, though wounded, is still around (and, incredibly, Addington and ilk in the background). Three, Condi Rice, frankly and with all due respect, seems still to be facing a tremendously steep learning curve in the Middle East, and not performing at the level the major crisis management required there begs. Oh, and of course, Bush is still President (so we must continue to wince and suffer through painful press conferences as he wades through his foreign policy talking points with nary a clue what he's really speaking of, while shuddering too to think the risks of war with Iran, even if relatively low all told, are made higher by his continued presence in the Oval Office, Gang of Three or no Gang of Three).

Now, this being a blog post and a certain level of histrionics and shrillness thereby all but pre-ordained, perhaps I'm being unfair. Dan Drezner has pointed to some sober 'grand strategy' accomplished by this Administration in Foreign Affairs recently that has gone mostly unheralded (though I have issues with his thesis, of which more soon, I hope). And we've seen no hugely incendiary missteps yet on Iran, an attempt (if rather tepid) to get Israeli-Palestinian talks back from comatose to something more, and, of course, the North Korean deal.

But then, on the other hand, we see how the Iraq Study Group's recommendations on talking to Iran and Syria were ingloriously mostly cast overboard (save the odd regional conference where we've co-participated with vivid unenthusiasm), and we see the hysteria surrounding Nancy Pelosi's visit to Damascus, among so much more maximalist circa '03 'axis of evil' absolutism. There are also little matters, of course, that languish still painfully unremediated, even at this late juncture (with 'legal lickspittles' like Gonzalez still in power, Andrew Sullivan's memorable phrase, how can we be surprised?), like the junking of habeas, Guantanamo, CIA authorized torture, and other grievances we civil liberties types wail on about like pansies from the sidelines, while the real men go out and extract confessions, you know, to save us from Aussie post-adolescents gallivanting about Kandahar, the bettter so we can sleep soundly at night here in the Homeland.

But I digress. Bottom line readers, do you think the Gang of Three, "alien graft" that is is, will "nevertheless [start] taking over the body", or will the team of bovine Bush and crudely pugnacious Cheney still manage to scuttle real corrective action with just over 20 months on the clock?

P.S. This apart, my favorite part of the article was this delicious quote from Strobe Talbott, re: John Bolton's carping from the Green Room circuit these last weeks on the NoKo deal:

The North Korea nuclear deal enraged former Bush officials such as John Bolton, who stepped down as US ambassador to the United Nations in December and who described it as a “very bad deal . . . that makes the administration look weak when it needs to look strong”. Former neo-conservative supporters of Mr Bush were equally scathing – a good barometer of how much the ground has shifted. “John Bolton’s attacks on the deal were worth 10 endorsements,” said Strobe Talbott, head of the Brookings Institution and a former deputy secretary of state. “His boos and hisses earned all the more applause for what was a remarkable feat that Christopher Hill [the chief negotiator in the talks] pulled off with Secretary Rice’s support.” [my emphasis]

Heh, as they say. Like Atrios, in this brave new world of (wondrously oblivious) imbeciles like Glenn Beck holding court on prime time "news" channels, I often wonder why this or that personage is "on my teevee". Of late, I'll typically switch the channel when Bolton comes on, not least as I consider it bad form to diss on your former colleagues just weeks after you were ostensibly serving alongside them. But "class" is a rare commodity these days down in DC, not least among our 17th Street grandees busy cheaply defecating on those who need to navigate in the real world (like Chris Hill), rather than pursue absolutist agendas from their cocooned, provincial enclaves in Chevy Chase, Bethesda and NW Washington, spouting on about if 'we only had the resolve', all would be well, with bombs away in Iran and Saudi and Korea and such. An increasingly fatiguing, and boorish, spectacle, isn't it? And yes, my (very reluctant) support of neo-primitive Bolton back in the day was another error on B.D's part, and I accept I should be tarred and feathered for it. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

P.P.S. I should add, given the first sentence of the FT piece about the conventional wisdom being that no one has left the Bush administration with their reputation higher than when they joined it, that I really do hope people like Paulson, Chief of Staff Josh Bolten (another Goldman alum), and Bob Gates can leave with their reputations enhanced rather than diminished. It's in all of our interests that they be able to do so. This depends again, however, on how strong the remedial action they can accomplish. On that, I'm afraid, the jury is still well out...but I certainly wish them all the luck and good will in the world.

Posted by Gregory at April 6, 2007 03:25 PM

Comments

do you think the Gang of Three, "alien graft" that is is, will "nevertheless [start] taking over the body", or will the team of bovine Bush and crudely pugnacious Cheney still manage to scuttle real corrective action with just over 20 months on the clock?

Let's remember that Condi has a serious man crush on the prez, so I'm not really sure that she can be counted on to run counter to the man. And Cheney is like something out of horror novel. Just this combo alone would be sufficient to scuttle any real corrective action. Throw in the bunker mentality these last 20 days are going to be traversed in and I think that I have a better chance of having an Exxon tanker named after me than the gang of three has of taking over the body Executive.

Posted by: Azael at April 6, 2007 06:24 PM | Permalink to this comment

Dang! 20 months, not days. We all should be so lucky.

Posted by: Azael at April 6, 2007 06:25 PM | Permalink to this comment

“John Bolton’s attacks on the deal were worth 10 endorsements,” said Strobe Talbott, head of the Brookings Institution and a former deputy secretary of state.

Hee-hee... that's delicious.

I don't know if I want to hazard a guess. It'd be nice to think that a course correction (ie, NOT effing up everything they touch; glad we've finally reached a consensus that being incompetent and clueless is not helpful) is the new black, but... Bush and Cheney are still in the WH. They're gonna be there for 2 more years. A lot can happen in 2 years. We could have another terrorist attack somewhere in the US, which would probably send people squealing hysterically back into Bushco's arms.

My mother mentions (admiringly) that asshat Beck pretty much every time I visit her. She's my mom and I love her and all, but if she thinks he's great, he truly is an idiot. She still loves Bush and Rumsfeld and think they're getting blamed for things that aren't their fault.

Posted by: LL at April 6, 2007 09:24 PM | Permalink to this comment

The biggest things we have to fear from Bush-Cheney are:

1. Leaving our troops in Iraq to be slaughtered.

2. Starting another war with Iran or anyone else.

3. Using another terrorist attack to destroy what's left of our political and legal structure.

If the Gang of Three can prevent any of that, then yippee for the Gang of Three.

If they can't - if the best they can manage is basic housekeeping (having to push the Bush Administration into honoring its own agreements is basic housekeeping) - then they're not much of a corrective influence; they're Band-Aids.

Posted by: CaseyL at April 7, 2007 01:24 AM | Permalink to this comment

Greg,

My question for you is, what has Condoleezza Rice done beyond being a "loyal Bushie"? As Secretary of State, where was she during the recent crisis between Iran and Britain? What did she accomplish last summer during the bombing of Lebanon?

Why should anyone trust her to do anything but what Bush says?

Posted by: Dan at April 7, 2007 01:29 AM | Permalink to this comment

What's Paulson going to do? As I see it, the economy is on its own trajectory, which looks like a cooling down or maybe worse. I suppose he might be able to contain a run on the dollar or some other crisis, but I don't see him "saving the day" as it were.

Gates and Rice might be able to help Bush out in foreign-policy land, with small victories here and there and avoidance of big gambles (e.g. attacking Iran). But as far as Bush's final two years go, it looks to be pretty much all Iraq. Are Gates and Rice in any way involved with fashioning some sort of better deal for the region? I'm not aware of it. Bush is wedded to a military-style "win" in Iraq with the Surge. And until that's shown to be a success or (more likely) nothing more than delaying the inevitable, Bush won't be up for much else. If this year Iraq somehow improves - not necessarily a "win", but even to "okay, we can pull out now without an immediate catastrophe" - I think that's all Bush would want. He'd then probably lay low until the end of his term. If, on the other hand, Iraq continues to be a problem, maybe then Bush will turn to Gates and Rice to bail him out. But even then, Cheney would have to be sidelined. An unlikely and difficult achievement.

Posted by: Quiddity at April 7, 2007 11:15 AM | Permalink to this comment

Gates yes, Rice no.

Try this thought experiment. An unhinged Cheney convinces Bush that a strike (with no more provocation than is presently publicly known) on Iran is the only way out of the quagmire, especially because Obama won't have the guts to do anything of the kind. What does Rice do and what does Gates do? If your answer is anything other than Gates resists strongly and then resigns, while Rice resists weakly and then publicly rationalizes it, you haven't taken the measure of either.

Posted by: CharleyCarp at April 7, 2007 02:52 PM | Permalink to this comment

Greg, as to your estimation(s) of what positive effects the "Gang of Three" might have in the latter years of the GW Bush Administration; I'd have to say you rate, at best, 2 out of three:

1. Gates/Defence: a positive: first: (and most importantly) he ISN'T Rumsfeld: secondly: see first point. Not being quite the neocon tool his predecessor was is a big step forward - bit I think the major fixes necessary to repair the post-Iraq military are going to be the province of the next SecDef - it will be, imo, a 5-10 year project.

2. Paulson/Treasury: a neutral, possibly a positive: as was pointed out, the US economy is going to do what it is going to do: at least Paulson may look better about not doing much: he is, at least, an "outsider" to the Bush Machine -

3. Rice/State: Greg, I really can't fathom how or why you could even imagine that Condoleezza Rice would have much positive effect (or much of any effect) on this Administration's foreign policy. The SecState is, quite often, seen as the principle "salesman" for Administration policies: and in Dr. Rice, what we have is a stylish, well-dressed sales rep who is peddling a badly flawed product to an increasingly skeptical customer base; and whose way of dealing with quality-control issues is to ignore or dismiss them: but still pressures the customer to buy (and gets cranky at them when they don't). Maybe she will, eventually, somehow find the leverage to influence the "factory" to improve the quality of the "product" - but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Posted by: Jay C at April 7, 2007 03:46 PM | Permalink to this comment

I don't think we should underestimate the benefits of having a strong Treasury Secretary after two exceptionally weak ones. On international economic issues that rarely make the front page of the Washington Post it's important that the governments of states with large economies know that they are not being asked to do things for trivial or merely political reasons. Paulson is in that and other respects a big improvement over Bush's first two Tresury Secretaries.

Gates benefits, as other posters have noted, from not being Rumsfeld, but there is more here than just public perception. One of the pillars of Vice President Cheney's influence until last year was his ability to use the resources of the Pentagon to pursue his desired courses of action (it was also true, of course, that Rumsfeld could count on someone closer to the President than he was to argue on behalf of his policy preferences. Which was more important may be debated -- and may be a moot point, if one thinks it likely that Rumsfeld and Cheney agreed most of the time). Cheney doesn't have that ability to anything like the same degree now.

I am not Sec. Rice's greatest admirer. I think she is a weak Secretary of State for many of the same reasons her predecessor was a weak Secretary of State, plus some new ones. However, I do give her credit for running interference for some of her subordinates as they attempted difficult negotiations, especially the one over North Korea. It could well be that Cheney's declining influence or even decreased physical vigor had a role in this, but the fact remains that Cheney was able to stall American diplomacy on the North Korean problem while Colin Powell was Secretary of State and failed to do that last year. Rice has to get some credit for that.

The FT article implied greater importance to these three Cabinet secretaries working together than I think the subject deserves. The way each of them, especially Paulson and Gates, have looked after their own departments is more significant. Also worth noting is that neither Paulson nor Gates are the kind of people to whom President Bush typically gives important responsibilities -- they don't have deep ties to him from his campaigns, are not close the Vice President, and accepted their appointments only reluctantly. Were Bush's approval ratings not in the low 30s it's unlikely either man would ever have been asked to serve.

Posted by: Zathras at April 7, 2007 07:01 PM | Permalink to this comment

I have not visited in a while - very pleasant surprise today.

I have little to add, except to say that the kerfuffle over Pelosi's visit to Syria (without mention of Gingrich's foray into China during the Clinton presidency - at a time of tense relations) seems to have focused on White House umbrage. Little was said of Condi and her reaction. I just got the impression that State did not mind all that much. Even twisting Olmert's discussions with Pelosi did not help much.

Any thoughts on parallel diplomacy? Even Republicans like Issa and Wolf were pretty blunt about the White House's track record vis a vis Syria.

Again: happy to see you posting. Thanks.

Posted by: Alan at April 7, 2007 07:20 PM | Permalink to this comment

I'll give Rice all due respect.....none. Here is G. Levy's take on her in Haaretz for those interested.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/771541.html

Gates went along with the 'surge', which will inflict further damage on the US Army. And he could not get Gitmo shut down. But that said, I would give him an 'incomplete'.

Paulson is the best Sec/Trea China ever had.

Posted by: jonst at April 7, 2007 07:45 PM | Permalink to this comment

Wow, this site has really turned into a echo chamber.

Posted by: ATM at April 8, 2007 03:57 AM | Permalink to this comment

Well, yes ATM......six years of witnessing (and suffering from) arrogant, incompetent, and criminal activity (it does not rise to the level sufficient to call it governance) which resulted in the greatest strategic military defeat the US has suffered (along with a corresponding defeat with regard to 'soft power', and a broken Army) tends to induce unanimity. Leaving aside the most fanatical of cult members still supporting Bush.

Posted by: jonst at April 8, 2007 11:07 AM | Permalink to this comment

Also, ATM: if you have some contrary opinions to express regarding Sec'ys Gates, Paulson or Rice (or any other issue Greg posts about) - please feel free to express them. I'm sure Mr. Djerejian will appreciate the input....

Posted by: Jay C at April 8, 2007 03:59 PM | Permalink to this comment

Yeah, put your President down. You're an idiot. In a time of war the President should be supported. As I said, you're an idiot.

Posted by: Tim at April 9, 2007 12:13 PM | Permalink to this comment

From an Australian point of view, President Bush has been strong on foreign policy, you're holding him to account for the mistakes of others (Dem and Rebublican), get a grip, traitors.

Posted by: Tim at April 9, 2007 12:19 PM | Permalink to this comment

It can't be a coincidence that the brain dead have all shown up at once.

Who linked here?

Posted by: CaseyL at April 9, 2007 06:50 PM | Permalink to this comment