At one point in time, all countries, in essences, wanted to have what the US had: the great economy, the freedoms, the multiple ethinicites living well together and so forth. That is not the case anymore. People around the world are starting to realize that those idealogies are long dead. The message that America tries to preach to the rest of the world, is a message it does not live by. From internal conflicts, such as issues with abortion, gay marriage, racism, lack of healthcare for the poor, and ever sliding education rankings to the external conflicts it has created with just about every country in the world. The only reason that most countries have not broken away from the US is because of money.
Anyways, America is no longer diplomatic. after the whole debacle and the lies associated with going forward with the Iraq war, everyone realized that America could not be trusted and only had its own agenda in mind. It will take many decades for the US to build the trust back that it has lost in the world. What was once something that America did best, American diplomacy is now almost completely not believed. people are hesitant to believe anything they read that comes out of the US and everyone now questions the reasons behind every decision that America makes.
Before America can fix its problems with its neighbors, it needs to fix its problems at home. It was great to see how unified everyone was after September 11th, but after a few months had passed, everyone went back to bickering and bashing each other. Some people call that democracy, but others realize that there is an uneasy tension that has been growing within all the communities in America. We will not be able to fix our relationships with the world until we can fix our own problems. The Israeli-Lebanese conflict is the least of Americas worries and that is scary. We constantly hear the Iraq is getting better, when anyone could tell you that Saddam had better control over the country than we will ever have. From the looks of it, we are digging ourselves into a diplomatic hole we may not be able to climb out of. We can try all we want now, but everyone thinks that we are up to no good.

The cold war is over, but the post cold war period is the continuation of the cold war era and if one looks at al-Qaede, one can see it as the US partner in bringing Soviet Union down in a well coordinated campaign (with credits to Brzezinski, Khalilzad and ...). Now that they have defeated Soviet Union, they have turned against West and the war of terror has started.

9/11 was coming and Clinton was very slow to react to bombings of US interests in Saudi Arabia and other cases. I agree with Sabet that the post cold war period provided a window of opportunity for settling the Israel/Arab conflict by active diplomacy. The US diplomacy should have ensured that it is not dragged into the violent 17th century style of religious confrontations between Moslems and Jews and between Sunnis and Shiites. I think it is a bit late now and I agree with neocons and recent Kissinger's WP column, and a surgery is needed in the region.

On another point, I want to give Rice credit for creating a coalition of US, Europe (and maybe Russia) in dealing with Iran. Powel did not manage to do that and let's give her credit when it is due regardless of her dress style and hobbies (that we wouldn't have heard about if she was a man). She is a talented lady, but she needs to be more relaxed and Rice cannot stand in front of the growing confrontation between Iran and US/Israel and should float with the current.
There is time for Diplomacy and there is time for war when Diplomacy fails. I won't be surprised if in the next 50 days we see Iran being attacked. Who knows maybe in the anniversary of 9/11.

One last point, on the limitations and constraints that the Congress and active lobbying in Washington put in front of Diplomacy. Diplomacy needs give and take and the language of sanctions and ultimatums affects that diplomatic
process. The Arabs (Kurds, Turks ...) should realise that the different lobby groups gang up or team up with each other protecting the interests of each other in the Congress and this is a fact of life in US Diplomacy that cannot be ignored. I remind myself and Sabet: c'est la vie as the French put it.

The statement about Kissingerian realism holding that America had only interests, not friends is an interesting one coming from Egypt, the one Arab country to produce a leader widely liked and respected in the United States. It was with Kissinger and Nixon that Anwar Sadat chose to initiate the difficult transition from being a client of the Soviet Union at war with Israel to a friend of America at peace with Israel.

[Incidentally, the line about having only permanent interests, not permanent friends is usually attributed to Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston, a mid-19th century Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary who made the statement about British policy toward continental Europe]

Kissinger's own thinking on realism emphasized that the United States like all nations pursues its interests. It risks misleading itself as well as other countries if it insists on pretending that it acts only on its values. Yet America's values must be recognized in the conduct of its foreign policy, otherwise the public of this large, rich country separated by oceans from most external threats will not understand why the problems of other nations are our concern. No foreign policy that respects American values could forget the people and nations that share those values.

Originally the most determined American critics of Kissinger's approach to foreign affairs objected most to his monopolization of the subject during the late Nixon and early Ford Presidencies; later both Republicans and Democrats were at pains to put distance between themselves and the politically toxic Nixon, with whom Kissinger was closely associated. And it has to be remembered that Kissinger served in high office during a period when the Soviet Union was at the height of its global influence, the American military was badly weakened by the long war in Vietnam that Nixon inherited, and Nixon's own administration was collapsing in circustances unprecedented in American history. Under such circumstances there wasn't a lot of room for idealistic adventures.

Having said all that Kissinger's approach to foreign policy has always gotten a bad press compared to Wilsonianism, which inspires now even though it failed badly in the hands of its author. My personal threshold of inspiration being rather high, I remember the failures as more important. It would never have occurred to me -- it seems never have occurred even to Wilson -- that Arab democracy ought to be the centerpiece of American foreign policy. Before the war started I likened the idea of building democracy in Iraq to trying to build a skyscraper in a swamp. So I guess this makes me a lousy Wilsonian.

A small digression before I end here: after 9/11 Americans will never believe that suicide bombs and explosives placed on subways represent a symptom of injustice and oppression. President Bush has chosen to characterize these things instead as the work of "evildoers" from societies needing only the light of democracy to purge these wicked people from their midst. Easy to mock as this vision is, it could as easily been replaced by the view that terrorism of this kind is of a piece with the terrorism long practiced by the government of Sudan -- about which Egypt's government, media and people have been so shamefully silent -- in its own war against civilians, a symptom of a backward, morally depraved culture that Americans ought to have nothing to do with. Nothing has made Americans less sympathetic over the years to the grievances of the Palestinians in particular than the terrorism Sabit asks us to understand. He should not be optimistic that this will ever change.

The Middle East view of US diplomacy has been somewhat tainted by its overwhelming support for Israel, and in relation to the lack of progress in providing a solution to the Arab Israeli dispute. Despite this view, there are comparisons drawn between the former Wilsonian ethic and his vision that America's role in diplomacy was to make the world a better place, and attempt to end conflict as a human condition. Contrasted with Kissingerian Realpolitik which essentially stated that the US had no friends only interests. This latter policy was certainly appropriate to the Cold War, and was considered necessary in curbing Soviet ambition, but in a post Cold War world, this becomes less effective. An example of this is the issue of terrorism, terrorism was perceived as a political tool cynically manipulated and directed by Soviet handlers, as such terrorism was treated as an issue, as the 'problem.' Today, this has not been as true, terrorism is a symptom, not the problem, a symptom of injustice and the oppression resulting from that injustice. Addressing terrorism through punitive measures rather than attempting to remedy the cause, by addressing the injustice has been a policy unaffected by the end of the Cold War.

In many respects the post Cold War period opened up many opportunities for creative diplomacy, opportunities that have been ignored. Much was expected of the United States, the only remaining super-power, its political, economic and military resources made of it a potentially formidable force for good.

The post Cold War era will perhaps be remembered as an era of lost opportunities, the opportunity when the last remaining super-power could have used its immense influence to rectify injustice around the world, end many of the world's conflicts. Instead it chose to sacrifice such lofty goals in exchange for narrow commercial interests. Iraq will perhaps be remembered as an example of this policy. It is never too late to apply enlightened self-interest to diplomatic policies, muscular liberalism makes for good diplomacy.

Couple of points:

First, I'm less impressed than S. Magi in terms of the role of an informed and activist citizenry, or the impact of communications technology on some thing like diplomacy. I'm not sure it really matters that much.

In fact, one could argue that in many parts of the Western world, the exact opposite is occurring. If anything, American foreign policy now appears to be more disconnected from popular sentiment than ever. This suggests to me that policy and the power to influence it is in the hands of an extremely isolated few.

Now, in response to the question Zathras poses about the role of Congress, I don�t think it has a formal role to play. But informally, maybe it is just this: that as representatives of the body politic, Congress should be working harder to ensure that foreign policy is not conducted through narrow control of "turf" within the overall policy apparatus. I'm not sure what the mechanism for that would be, but it's probably just a pipe dream anyway, isn't it? That would require strong oversight and objective public criticism at a minimum. (Though I have to say, I was pretty impressed with Sen Hagel on the floor this week.)

But at least at the current moment, with ideologically and politically polar Legislative and Executive branches, it seems like nothing matters above politics and pandering to the base. Unfortunately, good foreign policy and by extension good diplomacy should be inherently absent of politics. The chief concern should always be the self-interest, security and welfare of the country. A lot of that has gone by the wayside in the last several years. I think a lot of our foreign policy discussion, and ultimately consensus, in this country is predicated on scoring political points � I�m thinking Dubai Port Co., outsourcing, border control. In that sense, I see the current Congress as only contributing to the moribund state of our efforts abroad.

I think what will ultimately resuscitate American diplomacy is a establishing some shared interests and values between Americans and the world. That is going to require numerous difficult reform measures at home first � things like energy policy reform, environmental reform. So that�s a role for a future Congress. We also need to get back to meeting our partners half way on treaties like the Kyoto Protocol and ICJ. We need to become more flexible and less arrogant. These are the building blocks of establishing common ground with our partners, and that will ultimately lead to better diplomacy. But it�s a long process.

Ted makes a point upthread that the mainstream media (if I can use that phrase in this forum) have mostly missed. Try to imagine Henry Kissinger, George Schultz or James Baker reacting to the Israeli government letting something like the Cana bombing happen while its prime minister was meeting with the American Secretary of State, or publicly contradicting a Secretary of State's predicton about when fighting in Lebanon would end. None of Israel's bombs or Hezbollah's rockets could make a bigger explosion. From Sec. Rice and President Bush we heard nothing.

Condoleeza Rice gets a lot of bonus points from the American media, rather like the bonus points American military veterans get on civil service examinations but multiplied many times over. She gets bonus points for being black, for being a woman, for being pretty, for having interesting hobbies, and for having flawless fashion sense. Most of all, she get bonus points for her unquestioned access to the President. This is certainly important for a Secretary of State, but one has to wonder if American journalists, who prize access to public officials above all things in their own professional lives, overrate its importance somewhat in this case.

In truth Sec. Rice has appeared well out of her depth from the earliest days of the administration, her chief contribution having been the provision of briefings and emotional support to her chief in a policy area toward which he displayed little knowledge or interest before taking office. Pushed around by Cheney and Rumsfeld as National Security Adviser, Rice has been pushed around by foreign leaders as Secretary of State, with President Bush letting it happen both times. This does not reflect credit on either of them.

I make these observations about Sec. Rice by way of highlighting what I take to be a disagreement between my interlocutors here and me. Both Ted and Magi contend that the post-Cold War vacuum in American foreign policy thought has been filled; I deny it. Improvisations have been given the color of doctrine after the fact; Clintonian drift -- what John McCain used to call Clinton's "feckless, photo-op foreign policy" -- inspired bold and determined statements by aspiring Republican officeholders anxious to appear bold and determined. And it is true that within the Bush administration some of the philosophical void was filled by people whose sentimental attachment to Israel led them to identify American interests with the much narrower interests of the Jewish state. Not the least of those people was the President himself.

But drift, manufactured rhetorical boldness and the hapless adoption of an ally's strategic perspectives are reflections of the philosophical vacuum I decribed in the first post, not signs that the vacuum has disappeared. Consensus on what American interests are and how they ought to be prioritized -- the kind of consensus thrashed out in the first years of the Cold War -- still lies in our future.

Sec. Rice, a weak Secretary of State serving a weak President, is not the person to bring this consensus closer. And, incidentally, neither Vice President Cheney nor Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld are either. They have won their bureaucratic turf battles, they have takn the bold steps they called for ten years ago, and now they are stuck. During the Ford administration 30 years ago both men engaged in elaborate machinations to put their "stamp" on American foreign policy, and the result was that during 1976 American foreign policy all but ground to a halt -- which is pretty much where we are now.

When you have Presidents taking office with scant knowledge of foreign policy and delegating vast authority to people skilled primarily in winning Washington turf wars, you will not get a foreign policy made as an application of doctrine. You will get instead a chain of improvisations, driven by events and heavily influenced by domestic political considerations. Diplomacy, to return to the first question, will be an intermittent thing in this environment. Its place in American foreign relations can be restored, if our interests are properly identified and prioritized and the institutional foundation of our foreign policy is repaired. These are tall orders at this point.

Let me throw out a question: if we are talking about "resuscitating" American diplomacy, does Congress have a role to play? What is it?

The two doctorines that Ted mentions is related to the post cold war "hegemony" foreign policy of the right vs the "social" foreign policy of the left i.e. US being seen by many in left as "the ultimate arbitrator of domestic evolutions all over the world" (using Kissinger terminology). The left/right differences are there.

One can also see the Powel/Rumsfeld differences as the differences in terms of realism vs idealism in the US foreign policy. There are some notions which have not changed much in the US diplomacy or in general in diplomacy. For example the concepts of value vs. interest, idealist vs. realist and their balance in the administration remains the same despite the evolving environment of diplomacy. If the administration is dominated by too much idealism then it will still be called as "egghead", if dominated by too much realism, it will still be called as "acrobat". The right balance should be maintained for the diplomats to be able to score goals in the international arena. Too many realists or too many idealists �spoil the broth�.

But the expertise of Diplomat is also very important for a successfull diplomacy. The success of Kissinger in Jewish Arab relations, the success of Brzezinski in Eastern Europe and the success of Khalilzad in Afghanistan cannot be divorced from the natural expertise and skills that they have because of family, upbringing or past nationality.
If the administration wants to have a successful diplomacy in dealing with Iranians, Iraqis and Shiites then they should put someone in charge who has the expertise to talk to Shiites and Sunnis and the skills to play with them. Khalilzad ranks much better than Bremer simply because of his expertise and ability to play the game with those players. He looks like someone who feels comfortable to sit on the ground and sip tea and "lump suger" with those Haj Aghas.

I am not saying that picking Khalilzad guarantees success. But I think Rice made a better decision compared to say Powel in picking up the right diplomat for the position. In Lebanon, Rice needs to pick up the right diplomat with the skills needed. This is an issue of domain expert and picking the right person for the position.

[In brackets, I should also point out that keeping the Shiite militias in Lebanon and Iraq engaged may also be part of a bigger plan for another move that we are not aware of].

But I agree about the credibility issue that Ted raised.

I also think it's true that there are some institutional weaknesses inherent in the diplomatic system right now. The point Zathras makes about the Vice President's office - and really the President's staff in general - is a good one.

It was, I think, the case that the President and Vice President did not have much trust in Colin Powell, particularly after September 11th. This was largely due to an ideological disagreement, and must have been related to Powell�s preference to save war as a last resort and only fight when victory was assured. Many foreign leaders openly lamented the pointlessness of negotiating with Powell only to later have him over-ruled and undermined by Cheney and the Defense Dept.

But fast forward to last week. A Secretary of state who the President clearly trusts very much came back from the Middle East proclaiming that a cease-fire was reachable �in days, not weeks�. One dinner with the President and Stephen Hadley late, and all bets are off. Israel has a green light again. What message does that send to all foreign leaders? What is the point of talking with Dr. Rice at all? It looks like her bargaining positions are subject to post ante overruling - talk about weakened credibility. And when the decisions the President and his staff ultimately hand down are so clearly political, it leaves diplomacy severely weakened.

But I will take issue with the philosophical point. The fall of the Soviets left a foreign policy vacuum, to be sure. But that was in the 1990�s. The problem is that the vacuum has been replaced with competing theories, both of which exist in the Defense and State Departments. The first is the doctrine of empire and primacy � the Cheney/Rumsfeld doctrine. Obviously, this must be more prevalent in the defense department, but I think it exists at the political level in the state Department as well. The second doctrine is cooperative security, well executed by Clinton through NATO during the collapse of Yugoslavia. I think this is still strong at the working level in State Dept., though I could be way off.

I think a lot of what we are witnessing in US foreign policy right now is either the sad result of a weak attempt to blend these two doctrines, or it is a struggle between the two being worked out across the globe. Either way, it�s not working.

I agree that the victory in cold war changed the environment for US diplomacy and created this false impression for the right that US won the cold war by being assertive against �the Evil Empire� and we now see this hegemonic attitude to an extent crippling the US diplomacy and isolating US, but what are the key parameters in the success of US diplomacy in cold war? Was it the strategy makers and their designs in the region,
the bipartisan cooperation over 40 years in cold war diplomacy or the technological advances and changes in the global stage that caused the cold war victory?

The era of Kissinger/Brzezinski diplomacy was the era of cold war generation and
the Vietnam protestor generation. Now we are in the post cold war and Sept 11 generation with different values. The people now have stocks and the events in the world affect their stock prices.

The technology has also tremendous effect on the diplomacy game.
To highlight the differences, I want to use an analogy of diplomats as football
players. Earlier the spectators of the game were not watching the game online and those watching it in the stadium were very limited. Now the technology has provided this ability for Millions of people to watch the diplomacy game as it is played with no delay and raise their voices and the players can hear all these millions shouting at them. Now me and you can criticise the actions of Dr Rice in Lebanon and she can read it even before coming back. Lots of pressure on a diplomat in an IT society.

The rules of the game are also evolving and we see media and NGOs getting involved in the game. It is as if the spectators of a football game come and join the team and play against the other team or sometimes against their own team. Earlier they could only watch while sitting and encouraging the team or insulting them if they didn�t play well. Now the spectators come to the field. Now we have even �Internet Diplomacy�. � We are now playing it.

Some aspects have not changed, but we are in the midst of this evolution in the environment of diplomacy.

Thanks to The Washington Post and the managers of PostGlobal for hosting this experiment in giving inmates partial charge of the asylum. People interested in cyber-history might like to know that reader-driven discussions have been tried before from time to time, for example by the online magazine Slate (now owned by The Post) some five years ago. Slate liked the idea so much it abandoned it after a week. PostGlobal's managers seem made of sterner stuff, and we'll do our best to justify their confidence in us.

I'm going to resist the temptation to answer the question about American diplomacy in the context either of the latest Middle East crisis or the present administration's approach to foreign affairs generally. Neither aspect of the problem is in any danger of being overlooked here, and such limited wisdom as I might be able to impart about them can be shared later. I'd like to begin instead by addressing two serious weaknesses in how the American government approaches diplomacy and foreign relations. One is institutional and bears on the means available to conduct diplomacy; the other is philosophical and relates to the ends American diplomacy is intended to achieve.

The institutional weakness was documented in part by The Post's own Dana Priest four years ago in her book The Mission, an account of how many tasks formerly assigned to civilian agencies came more and more to be assigned to the Department of Defense during the Clinton administration. The causes of this major transfer of responsibility were manifold, little understood by Americans and likely to baffle foreigners completely.

One cause was Congressional hostility to the State Department, in particular the hostility of one man, longtime Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Jesse Helms. Another involved the budgetary dynamics of the early and mid-1990s in Congress; facing large deficits and anxious to limit spending cuts in programs with domestic constituencies, Congress slashed the resources available to civilian foreign affairs agencies like the Agency for International Development and folded the US Information Agency into the State Department. During a critical period in the mid-1990s the Clinton administration had a very strong Secretary of Defense (William Perry) and a weak Secretary of State in Warren Christopher. Turf wars over subjects that could fall inside either department's purview were most often resolved at that time in favor of the Pentagon. Ambitions in the Defense Department to expand its mandate into areas traditionally handled by State could have been thwarted by the White House, as they had been in the past. But President Clinton's interest in foreign affairs was episodic only, and he was not close to his Secretaries of State, preferring to rely instead on the National Security Council staff in the White House.

For these and other reasons the Bush administration inherited a State Department incapable of dominating the conduct of foreign affairs as it had in earlier administrations. A commission chaired by two prominent former Senators concluded in 2000 (http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/nssg/addendum/Vol_I.pdf)that the "Department of States does not function in a effective manner, nor is it organized or resourced to meet current or future global security challenges." President Bush compounded the State Department's institutional weakness by appointing a Secretary of State in whom he did not have great confidence, and in ceding substantial influence over foreign policy to the Office of the Vice President -- something that had not happened in any previous administration, Republican or Democrat, in well over two centuries.

This somewhat lengthy explanation is important because "diplomacy" is not a thing that can simply be conjured by a suffiently worldly or enlightened President. It requires an institutional foundation. Ours -- the Department of State -- is badly weakened.

The philosophical problem stems from the vacuum created in American thinking about foreign affairs by the Soviet Union's collapse. For over forty years the Cold War had defined the main objectives of American diplomacy -- to keep the world from getting blown up, first of all, but also to conduct and win the geo-political and ideological struggles with the Communist superpower. When those struggles ended in American victory both Republicans and Democrats in Washington were left at sea as to what we had to strive for next, and fifteen years later that is still largely true.

The philosophical vacuum created by the Cold War's end has been a more formidable thing than foreigners, understandably preoccupied by their own problems, easily appreciate. The dominant American attitude toward the world overseas, after all, had been isolationism up until the end of 1941. A sense of America's mission as a world power, independent of the long twilight struggle against Communism, has had to be formed largely from scratch. Presidents who had thought long and deeply about foreign affairs might have successfully filled the vacuum -- but in a world without the Soviet threat, such men have had little chance of being elected President. In their place Americans have elected two men in succession who took office without significant background in foreign affairs, or even military experience. The first, Clinton, took an approach to foreign policy that neglected risks to American lives and security. His successor Bush exaggerated them, indeed arguably created new ones, while into the bargain casually trashing the record of his predecessors in the White House and proclaiming a priority -- democracy in the Arab world -- of dubious relevance to American interests even assuming it were possible.

Just as the institutional foundation of American diplomacy is weak right now, its philosophical foundation -- that understanding of the most important things American foreign policy must do, achieve and prevent -- is uncertain as well. This doesn't mean America lacks all capacity to respond creatively to specific crises, and certainly shouldn't be considered an excuse for an administration that has not often used well the tools it has. It does mean that the "resuscitation" -- or perhaps it would be better to say the rehabilitation -- of American diplomacy will take both resources and time. It will take as well determination to confront the historic causes of our diplomacy's decline straightforwardly and without flinching.

Kissinger in his book "Does America Need a Foreign Policy?" tries to answer this question. In his book, he mentions Jerry Bremer for "pithy advice and editorial comments". Bremer was in charge in Iraq and we know what happened there.

I think the present crisis of US Diplomacy is because of a lack of thinkers powerfull enough to fill the shoes of Kissinger and Brzezinski in their earlier years. "Why the era of Kissinger/Brzezinski was so successful" could help us to understand the present dilema. Or was it successful?

I think it's too easy to just answer "yes," and say American diplomacy is, in fact, a dead art. There is a great deal of anecdotal evidence from the past few years that supports this notion, but in reality, the answer is probably much more complicated.

Some of the best American efforts at diplomacy usually involve soft power and coercion. By getting other leaders to agree that we have shared interests and by focusing on our mutual priorities, we are able to bring other countries around to our point of view. And in that sense, we are having a very difficult time achieving much success right now. There doesn't seem to be much common ground between us and practically anyone in the world right now.

This latest crisis in Lebanon has served as a tremendous eye-opener. After two weeks of war, not one Middle Eastern or European country agrees with our diplomatic line of "sustainable peace". That doesn't automatically make us wrong, but it raises some issues at the negotiating tables where diplomacy is typically carried out. It makes it very difficult to much more than what we are currently doing, which is work a few back channels and let events unfold as they may. But in the process, we are losing our last shred of credibility with a lot of the world, which is also important for diplomacy.

But there is another side to the coin, and that is economics. Arguably out most successful relationship in the world right now is with India, a country with a large Muslim populace. Why is that? I think it's because while many Indians may or may not share our values politically, they like working with American businesses, and they see what gains that bring to society. And that is one place I find cause for cautious optimism.

The last point I'll make for now is that the world has also changed lot very quickly. We are not going to negotiate common ground with al Qaeda. We have to acknowledge that. But we also have to be careful not to lump all extremists together. We may very well find common ground with Iran, Syria and Hizb'allah. It will not likely be in terms of shared values, but it might clearly be in terms of shared interests in their region.