The Foreign Service Journal, January 2004

70 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 4 B OOKS Dangerous Drivel Dangerous Diplomacy: How the State Department Threatens America’s Security Joel Mowbray, Regnery Publishing Inc., 2003, $27.95, hardcover, 307 pages. R EVIEWED BY E DWARD L. P ECK Let’s not be diplomatic about this book. As you might expect from a jacket blurb praising its author as a “pit-bull journalist” (a slur on both groups, I would contend), it is a nasty piece of work, grossly inaccurate and gratuitously polemical throughout. Take just one amazing howler, on page 100: “... all communication from the embassy must go through the fil- ter of the desk officer, [so] what folks inWashington know about the goings- on in a foreign country ... largely hinges on what the desk officer choos- es to pass on.” To support that lunacy, he quotes an unidentified “adminis- tration official with extensive desk officer experience ...”. Self-immolation of this magnitude destroys Mowbray’s repeated claims to insider status, but critics of the Foreign Service (his target audience) may instead be impressed by his 603 footnotes (I had to count them) and 15-page index. Of course, 99 foot- notes are meaningfully attributed to “interview” or “an informed source;” a further 103 are “ibid.” As for the index, it includes three citations for “Texas” and two for “Virginia.” If you are looking for real research, this is the guy. Mowbray endlessly alleges dishon- esty, unethical behavior, and crimes of omission and commission by State’s Civil and Foreign Service employees, and suggests that such conduct is not merely condoned, it is encouraged. He devotes a great deal of space to detailing the heartbreaking agonies of Americans whose children are taken overseas by the other parent, blaming the failure to get host countries — e.g., Saudi Arabia — to act against their citizens to satisfy ours entirely on the cold indifference of named con- sular officers. He then puts into their mouths brutally callous, offensive and highly questionable hearsay com- ments allegedly obtained from angry, understandably distraught Americans. The book’s overarching focus on America’s (mis)dealings with Arab countries is reflected in chapter titles like “Courting Saddam,” “Crushing Freedom, Tolerating Tyrants,” and “Wrong Hands: The Arming of the Middle East.” Yet the role of State and the Foreign Service in imple- menting the cited policies was neither proprietary nor exclusive, as is well known and understood by anyone with the tiniest sliver of knowledge, understanding or experience. Mow- bray fails to qualify, even at that level, and appears proud of it. Nor is he even a decent writer, though we should perhaps welcome that particular fault if it deters readers from getting very far into this poorly organized and disjointed diatribe. The book rambles, goes back over the same distortions, repeatedly touts the author’s skills and accomplishments, and shrilly hypes his basic points. Lacking any semblance of rationality, it belongs in a checkout-counter tabloid: “Saddam’s WMD Seen at Graceland!” Regrettably, this book will likely reinforce the limited but dangerous delusion that State has absolute — and absolutely covert — control over foreign affairs, and that the Foreign Service is full of rogue members. That belief conveniently permits crit- ics to unplug their brains, content to identify diplomats as the source of everything that goes wrong. The truth is far messier than that. Yes, State participates actively in the domestic battles over foreign policy formulation, but it does not make the decisions. In overseas implementa- tion of those decisions, State has a larger role, but it certainly does not (and cannot) operate either indepen- dently or clandestinely, as Mowbray endlessly alleges. But he is right about one thing: organizations are never perfect, nor are their personnel. So the Foreign Service and State Department would Dangerous Diplomacy belongs in a checkout-counter tabloid: “Saddam’s WMD Seen at Graceland!” w