I woke up this morning to the latest story of the State Department busily dissing the Pentagon and administration as ignoring their "Future of Iraq Project".
But what they don't want you to know is contained in this Frontline interview with Kanan Makiya -- this insider's view highlights their cynical propaganda play for what it is. READ THE WHOLE THING -- IT'S LONG BUT CONTAINS ENORMOUS INSIGHTS THAT YOU WILL NEVER LEARN IN CIVICS CLASS ABOUT HOW THE BELTWAY BUREAUCRACY REALLY WORKS. IT'S SO GOOD THAT I'VE ADDED IT TO THE "Classics" LIST OVER ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE PAGE.
Check out this snippet:
[Emphasis added.]
You actually said to one journalist, "The enemies of a democratic Iraq lie within the State Department and the CIA."
I think that was correct. Yes -- I'm sad. It's very sad to have to say it, but the State Department and CIA have consistently thwarted the president's genuine attempt, I think, to do something very dramatic in this country. Fortunately they have not totally succeeded, and in some ways, the struggle is still on, although the situation has changed now inside Iraq. I mean, ever since the appointment of Paul Bremer, we have a very different dynamic now at work inside Iraq. ...
It is incomprehensible to most people, to understand, to believe that the State Department doesn't favor democracy.
It's not about favoring or not favoring. It believes in democracy for themselves, but it simply thinks -- I mean, people like myself get the impression from talking to State Department people that they don't think this part of the world is ready for it, or is up to it. They are in a sense too cynical; they're too embedded. They have diplomats who are too used to hobnobbing with sheiks and rulers of Saudi Arabia, and so on, to even imagine that something dramatically different is possible.
But there is no tradition of democracy ...
That is true, that is true. That is why you need imagination and you need a deep inner conviction that people, just because they are Muslims and Arabs, are not somehow obstructed from bringing about democratic societies. You need to be very firm, as people like Paul Wolfowitz are. As Arabs and Muslims, you need to believe in your heart of hearts that fundamentally it's both important and necessary to break the stereotype that just because somebody's Muslim or an Arab there is somehow an antithetical relationship to democratic values and culture, that somehow the religion or the culture is against that.
You make it sound like a form of racism.
That's how I would feel. It's certainly how I felt with many officials that I had to deal with in the U.S. government. By the way, it's even worse in Europe. It's condescension, and they treat you in the most condescending possible ways. Actually, when you see them work inside Iraq later on, you see this condescension change. You know, all of a sudden they like inculcating little NGO's. ...
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