We don't need no stinking diplomacy!

The following is a guest post by valued commenter "Huck Finn"'

Where are the American diplomats in Iraq?

"When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

One of my major complaints about the handling of the Iraq War has been the lack of U.S. interagency involvement and support, particularly the State Department. In the days leading up to March 19th, 2003, I wrote in my journal that I envisioned huge contracted cargo ships at the docks in Um Qasr unloading massive supplies for interagency groups and non governmental organizations. I finally realized that it was not part of the plan. Three years later, it's the military doing the nation building.

The military’s mission to fight and win the nation's wars now includes rebuilding nations as a core military mission. With 113k troops deployed at a cost of $10 billion per month, perhaps only two of the four major elements of national power—diplomatic, informational, military and economic—are fully engaged in the war. Most notably absent is diplomatic power and the result is that the military is burdening the load that civilian diplomats should bear.

In the June 15th edition of Government Executive Magazine Katherine Peters wrote an article on the subject. She notes the observations of several players, including retired General Barry McCaffrey and Assistant Secretary of State John Hillen.

She quotes McCaffrey in a report to fellow professors at West Point, “The U.S. Interagency support for our strategy in Iraq is grossly inadequate.”

Hillen is quoted: “There’s a lot of disappointment across the government that [the mission in Iraq is] still a DoD show. The great ‘aha’ of the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) is that we cannot kill or capture our way to victory in either Iraq or Afghanistan or the [global war on terrorism] in general.”

(Now that you've read Hillen's quote, reread the quote in italics at the top of this artice)

Colin Powell and James Webb didn’t need to wait on the post-invasion, group-think QDR to warn them of the dangers of relying exclusively on military power to achieve victory. They made their points known before the invasion. Just as they predicted, we "own it," referring to our costly long-term presence in Iraq.

I recommend anyone recommending changes to our role or strategy in Iraq read this well-written article on one area where our government can more effectively use its talent and expertise before drawing conclusions on how we should pursue a satisfactory end state in Iraq.