‘When you strip away the politics, the experts…are very worried about the administration’

June 15, 2006

Foreign Policy, an influential journal published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, did something interesting recently. The journal asked 100 leading American foreign-policy analysts, from both sides of the aisle, for their perspectives on the war on terrorism.

The participants were some serious heavy-hitters, including a former secretary of state, former heads of the CIA and NSA, and prominent members of the U.S. foreign-policy establishment, most of whom served in previous presidential administrations, senior military positions, or both.

The result was Foreign Policy’s first “Terrorism Index,” released yesterday. Unfortunately, the leading experts in the field aren’t optimistic. (from Hark via email)

Washington is failing to make progress in the global war on terror and the next 9/11-style attack is not a question of if, but when. That is the scathing conclusion of a survey of 100 leading American foreign-policy analysts. […]

Some 86 percent of them said the world has grown more, not less, dangerous, despite President George W. Bush’s claims that the U.S. is winning the war on terror. […]

“When you strip away the politics, the experts, almost to a person, are very worried about the administration,” says Joe Cirincione, vice-president of the Center for American Progress, the Washington think-tank which co-sponsored the survey. “They think none of our front-line institutions is doing a good job and that Iraq has made the terror situation much worse.”

Keep in mind, getting these 100 experts to agree on anything is challenging, and yet, there was broad agreement on the Bush administration’s inability to make progress on these fronts.

In the survey’s accompanying report, Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, said policy analysts have never been in such agreement.

“The reason is that it’s clear to nearly all that Bush and his team have had a totally unrealistic view of what they can accomplish with military force and threats of force.”

The White House isn’t fond of analysis from policy experts, but given the participants in this project, the results should raise some eyebrows.

Tony Snow and Don Imus will just trash them the next time they get together.

Really? This is news? The Bushites don’t know their weaknesses? They are not winning the ‘Global War on Terror’?

Maybe, just maybe they should stop and think about what they are missing by calling it the ‘Global War on Terror’. Like the fact that Boy George II walks hand in hand and kisses the first cousins and half-brothers of the Wahabist members of the House of Saud who are funding the schools and terrorist camps where our enemy is learning to hate our guts.

Can there be no clearly reason for the Bushites denial of ‘reality’ than this?

  • “The reason is that it’s clear to nearly all that Bush and his team have had a totally unrealistic view of what they can accomplish with military force and threats of force.”

    ShrubCo was as realistic as it let on considering they wanted to act like it was going to painless and heroic for America to go to war on behalf of oil companies. When Shruby said “Mission Accomplished”, he believed it was that simple. No draft. No big bill due. No significant casualties. No big deal. It’s our oil now and lets start pumping. It’s a daisy chain of heads up asses.

  • Will FP publish the list of experts? I take them for their word about the 100 being bigwigs, but I’m curious just who comprises it.

  • Some 86 percent of them said the world has grown more, not less, dangerous, despite President George W. Bush’s claims that the U.S. is winning the war on terror…

    Crikey…

    I’ve been saying this for 5 years now…

    You don’t have to be a foreign policy expert to realize it.
    Just open your eyes and ears to the facts.
    Or even better: practice a little empathy…

    Imagine you are arabic and Islamic and watched America roll tanks through the birthplace of Islam, after gloating about “shock and awe.”

    Imagine you are arabic and Islamic and watched smart bombs go awry and rip to shreds hundreds of Iraqi children.

    Imagine you are arabic and Islamic and watched shrine after shrine being destroyed BECAUSE of the American invasion…

    Gee…
    Y’all reckon that’s gonna make friends for America?

    C’mon.
    Wakey up.

    Bush’s policies are purposely crafted to fracture the world and enrich corporations like Halliburton and Ratheon and Exxon.

    These repug fuckers don’t give a shit about peace… even as they don’t give a shit about global warming.

    They are evil beyond compare.

    Until you understand this… you haven’t realized just how sinister these bastards are….

  • Will FP publish the list of experts?

    Good question, Mike; I meant to provide a link to it. The list is here. The unfortunate thing is that the list of people doesn’t come with their titles.

  • it’s funny how everytime there’s good news for the US, the media runs out to do some polls from their kook base.

    funny. I didn’t see any polls the day after Al Zarqawi bit the dust.
    But I did see some of his handiwork.

    http://www.homestead.com/prosites-prs/bergvideo.html

    and right after that, sure enough, kooks came out of the wood work to say the video was a fake.

    http://topplerummy.org/berg/

    Look for the drive-by media to do the same thing with the Iraqi documents that say the war is having a brutal effect on al qaeda. Even Iraq thinks they’re winning the war on terror

    http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C3B6E875-34BC-4119-B352-AA3EF30BC3FE.htm

    A marine stationed in Fallujah recently wrote a letter to his hometown paper in Ridgefield, Connecticut:

    “In Fallujah, the people watch Al Jazeerah. However, they also watch CNN. A lot of them fear that the United States will soon cut and run. …”

    welllll…

    Murtha: Now Is “A Perfect Time” To Withdraw Troops From Iraq…

    “Even this attack on Zarqawi happened from the air,” Murtha said. “There’s no real need for us to be inside the country.”

    House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi warned Americans not to get too excited over the death of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, saying in a statement issued by her office Thursday that it really won’t do much to improve the situation in Iraq.

    “It’s amazing that these people are like “killing the most active terrorist on the planet does nothing to help the War On Terror”, but at the same time they go into year long orgasms when Bush’s Vice President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs is forced to resign.”

  • “It’s amazing that these people are like “killing the most active terrorist on the planet does nothing to help the War On Terror”, but at the same time they go into year long orgasms when Bush’s Vice President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs is forced to resign.”

    Hysterical.

    I got $5000 cash that says the above was written by a fellow who was jumping up and down with an erection screaming for Clinton’s “head” after he got head.

    Repug priorities ya’ know.

    It is okay that “B” lied us into an illegal war with Iraq, but it is not okay that Clinton lied to hide some embarrassing private sex he had with another consenting adult.

    The first… (the illegal war) is good for repug businesses.
    The second… oh… that’s a no-no ain’t it chruch lady?

    I am telling you:

    These republican trolls are wretchedly sinister.
    They are warped inside…
    Sick.
    Demented.
    Evil.
    Willful Child Killers.

    I’d rather consort with cockroaches.

  • Boy, tough being a troll on TCR.

    You just never get any of the respect you THINK you deserve, ah?

  • “The unfortunate thing is that the list of people doesn’t come with their titles.” – CB

    Particularly since they seem to be very much second stringers. I know at most ten of these names off hand.

  • The list has a number of retired generals. I came up with about 20 recognized names.

  • I recognize significant writers on foreign policy like Fukuyama, a few State Department honchos, some even in former Republican administrations, and quite a few newspaper folks, including Arnaud Borchgrave of the Washington Times, that right-wing rag. So it’s not all military, State Department, but also outside observers and intellectuals.

  • That’s not a “second-string” list. Several very respected Generals, guys like Richard Clarke, etc. I saw 30 whose names you can find with a little bit of a search at Google who I’d consider “heavy hitters.” In the field of foreign policy, most of the “heavy hitters” aren’t “household names” even in households that pay attention.

  • Weschler, I know. He chaired the Inter-Agency Group on Kid George’s good friend, Osama bin Laden. Goodson is an International Studies Professor at Bentley. Hoar is a retired “Four-Star” Marine. Slaughter is Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton. Compared just to these four, SnowFlake and Imus are nothing more than a wadded-up bundle of used toilet paper.

    The only way that the Republikanner (the common name for the species Homo Criminallus) can counter people like these (and, of course, the other 96) is to bash them. They simply cannot defeat these people in a head-on competition of facts…so they spin a web of fiction instead. Something about the GOP Kool Aid destroying brain cells, I believe….

  • “Keep in mind, getting these 100 experts to agree on anything is challenging, and yet, there was broad agreement on the Bush administration’s inability to make progress on these fronts.”

    Well I’ll be damned. Turns out Dumbya is a ‘uniter’ after all!

  • Actually, one only has to go here:

    http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/ ,

    to the State Department’s own reports on terrorism to find that Bush’s war on terror has served only to stir up a real hornet’s nest. His so called “war” has done far more harm than good.

    It takes a bit of patience to extract the relevant data from these reports to prove the point, however. Another impression one gains from the statistics is that global terrorism, in spite of the horror of 9/11, has never been a major problem when compared to other causes of human misery and tragedy. But, thanks to Bush, it’s getting a lot worse.

  • It’s a good list. I count 74 that I’m on a first name basis with. They are no joke.

  • Anybody have a source on a critical analysis of the claim that Iraq is central to the war on terrorism? Does the “fighting them over there rather than fighting them at home” really have any merit at all?

  • Lou –

    I don’t know, but I’ve always wondered what the Iraqi people think of that claim. Imagine it’s reversed: another country invades the U.S., allegedly to fight terrorism, and then uses that line to justify doing so. I can’t imagine Americans would respond well to that.

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