Bush 41 Grownup Repudiates Bush 43 Foreign Policy

The Washington Independent
10/28/08

By Spencer Ackerman

Speaking of recognizing that eight years’ worth of foreign policy has
ended in total failure, an interesting item comes to me from Rice
University.

Edward Djerejian is a longtime diplomat and confidant of James
A. Baker III, the former secretary of state and consigliere to George
H.W. Bush. Djerejian was an outsized figure in GOP foreign-policy
circles in its pre-neocon days, having been the only U.S. diplomat to
serve as ambassador to both Syria and Israel. After leaving government
service in the Clinton administration, he became the founding director
of Baker’s institute at Rice University, and Colin Powell briefly
recalled him to chair a State Dept. panel on public diplomacy during
George W. Bush’s first term. In other words, he’s a grownup.

Djerejian doesn’t have much patience with the ultras who drove
U.S. foreign policy off a cliff during the younger Bush’s term. I
haven’t read his new book, `Danger and Opportunity: An American
Ambassador’s Journey Through the Middle East,’ but according to a
press release I have read, Djerejian reaches over to the right-wing
kiddie table and brandishes a switch he cut off the backyard oak tree:

Djerejian backs a fundamental shift in U.S. foreign policy in the
Middle East from conflict management to conflict resolution.

"The road to Arab-Israeli peace does not go through Baghdad or Tehran
as the neocons advocated. I think that is a wrong-headed policy, and I
think the results of that have been rather disastrous," Djerejian
said.

While supporting moves to spread democracy in the Arab and Muslim
world, Djerejian cautioned against a `fixation on elections.’ He
relayed an anecdote from his time as ambassador in Damascus.
Then-Syrian President Hafez al-Assad had just been reelected with
99.44 percent of the vote. Djerejian said he congratulated Assad on
his overwhelming victory and then asked him who were the .56 percent
who had voted against him. `I have all their names,’ Assad assured
Djerejian. The point of the anecdote, Djerejian said, is that
`elections alone do not make democracy.’

Doug Feith and Paul Wolfowitz better get out the ointment before that
leaves a mark. Djerejian’s book appears to be an unsubtle rebuke of
George W. Bush’s approach to the Middle East and a way of saying the
U.S. has a chance to start over. Is Djerejian even bothering to back
Sen. John McCain this election cycle? Hmmm.

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