Foreign policy mandarins

Joe Klein has written one of the most interesting (and, of course, insider-like) takes on the much-derided foreign-policy community I've yet read.

The Priesthood seems deeply anti-surge and anti-Bush. Yes, there were liberals who favored the war way back in 2002--and a few lonely Democratic hawks, Pollack and O'Hanlon, for example--who still do.

But there are many more, like Jessica Matthews, who opposed the war and continue to provide excellent commentary on the delusional quality of Bush Administration. And then there's Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former hawk, who was a dove on Iraq from the start (and also the entire Bush 41 foreign policy team and enough others to make the case that there really was no consensus at all within the Priesthood about going to war in 2003).

In fact, neoconservatives have long derided the foreign policy priesthood as a bunch of weenies, far more interested in talking things out than in punching things up. The State Department's Arabists have been a particular target, and rightly so: They produced a report in 2002 called "The Perfect Storm" (Ryan Crocker was among the authors) arguing that an invasion could create the very effects we're seeing now....

Also readers should make the distinction between full-time TV talking heads like Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes, and members of the Priesthood, like Jessica Matthews or even Ken Pollack, who appear on TV infrequently unless they are under contract as Tony Cordesman is to ABC (I think). If you want to make the argument that the networks ignored anti-war voices, fine. I agree. But that's a different argument from saying that the Priesthood was overwhelmingly in favor of the war, or anything else.

This sounds correct to me, but is in some ways it's an unimportant distinction. It's true that critics (bloggers and others) often paint with broad and imprecise brush strokes but that doesn't mean they're not on to a real problem. Spend a little bit of time reading blogs and you'll read several sweeping critiques of the dread "punditocracy" for its political skew, its unwillingness to heed criticism and on and on. This is presumably the same punditocracy, though, that includes Paul Krugman, Nicolas Kristof, E.J. Dionne, Harold Meyerson, Dan Froomkin, the staff of The American Prosepct, the staff of The Nation, and on and on and on.

The general critique, though, is still a strong one. There remains significant overlap between "the foreign policy community" and "the Very Serious People" who are perhaps more rightly derided. Bill Kristol might not attend dinners with members of the Council of Foreign Relations (I have no idea) but he's still an influential voice with right wing politicians and a comrade of sorts to people like Michael O'Hanlon who may not represent the foreign policy community, but who's one of its most visible members.

Kevin has written up a good list of the reasons why the "dissidents" within the foreign-policy community--perhaps more accurately the majority thereof--were silent and ignored on Iraq. And it makes sense that supporters of the war (both true believers and those cowed into their positions) were vocal. The war was going to happen one way or another, and that made the appearance of influence pretty much contingent upon being a vocal hawk. The most important question remains the one that Joe somewhat elides at the end there. Why did the networks ignore the community of experts in favor of the community of Very Serious People? The answer, it seems to me, is that the media is pathologically wedded to covering issues as partisan disputes and not as questions that have been answered by a consensus of experts. It happened with Iraq, it happened for years with climate change, it still persists with health care and will continue, I suppose, until either the media dynamic itself changes, or fails and is replaced by something better. Not holding my breath.