When Politics Doesn't Stop At the Water's Edge
When foreign policy falls to the whims of grandstanding politicians, we're in trouble.
CNN reports today:
An extraordinary effort by Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas to block nominees from being confirmed to vital jobs in the State Department is creating hurdles for the Biden administration and hindering U.S. diplomacy, according to Democrats and Republicans who spoke to CNN.
The Biden administration -- with about 60 State Department nominees waiting to be confirmed -- is encountering greater roadblocks in securing Senate confirmations at State than at any other agency. Administration officials and Democrats point to Republicans, who admit they're playing a role. But sources from all three groups say the bulk of the blame should be placed on Cruz.
We saw Jesse Helms pull this demagogic stunt repeatedly throughout his thirty years as a U.S. senator, five of them as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. He arbitrarily held up numerous State Department nominations for months for reasons ranging from they weren’t “sufficiently loyal to President Ronald Reagan” to one ambassadorial nominee’s belief that medical marijuana should be legalized.
Working at State during those years, and knowing many of the professional diplomats Helms targeted, I felt that he reveled in exercising his power as he saw fit, not only to stick it to the “libs,” but to feed his own ego. His wrecking the careers of many patriotic public servants seemed not to gnaw at his conscience one whit. One of his staffers, cigar in hand and sporting a smug expression, told me, “We are here to help you.” My response, “Thanks but no thanks.”
By foisting these political ploys, demagogues like Cruz purposely throw monkey wrenches into the foreign policy machinery. “Acting” officials simply don’t carry the heft that Senate-confirmed ambassadors and assistant secretaries have. As CNN points out, there is no U.S. ambassador in Kabul just as we pull out of Afghanistan and the situation there enters a dire phase. And we lack assistant secretaries to oversee policy over Central and South Asia, Latin America (just when Cuba and Haiti heat up), East Asia (as relations with China fray) and the Middle East (always a powder keg).
The Department of State is the nation's oldest cabinet agency. Its effective exercise of soft power to avoid conflict, promote democratic values and human rights, maintain our alliances and counter adversaries was severely damaged by the previous administration. It is not the “Department of Swagger,” as asserted by Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, but an organization manned by serious, smart and patriotic Americans who labor hard in some of the most dangerous and unappealing places on earth to promote and defend the nation. It can be seen as one pillar of a triad of our national security: Diplomacy, Military, Intelligence. All must function effectively, or risk plunging the world's sole superpower into weakness, even conflagration.
Trump seriously damaged the State Department through neglect, budget cuts, purges and placing of unqualified MAGA-commissars in key positions, including just under half of ambassadorships. This led to 60 percent of senior officials leaving the department. The old saying “people are policy” is very relevant here. Just as with Senator Joe McCarthy and his 1950s witch hunts in State, it will take years to reverse Trump’s damage.
Just as a new administration, one that is serious about foreign policy and headed by highly qualified technocrats, is finding its sea legs, hyperpartisan, grandstanding Republicans appear dead set on kneecapping it, including by holding up senior appointments. The late Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg, often at loggerheads with FDR and Harry Truman, famously declared, “Politics stops at the water’s edge.” In other words, political disputes are internal matters, and should not be reflected in dealings with other nations. But those were the quaint old days when all political factions set aside differences and pulled together to advance common national interests and goals.