Talking is Bad

You heard it hear first. Joel Mowbray has revealed that President Bush has no control over the State Department. When it comes to getting the State Department to do as he says, President Bush has completely failed, at least according to Joel Mowbray.

Of course it could be that President Bush has different expectations than Mr. Mobray. Perhaps President Bush feels that the State Department should work to change the behavior of other nations without the necessity and expense of going to war. Mr. Mowbray takes Richard Haass, the State Department's top policy official to task for failing to implement a policy that the white house hasn't announced yet. According to Mowbray, the White House is about to disengage from the Iranian government, but Mr. Haass is continuing his work as if this policy hadn't been announced yet. Which it hasn't. But it will be.

"As the biggest booster for continuing "talks" with the Iranian mullahs—which invariably give legitimacy to the ruthless regime—he has the most incentive to carry on secret negotiations."

So talking with the Iranian Mullahs would be bad, because it gives them legitimacy. Hey, aren't we talking to Uzbekistan (A country where, according to the State Department, "Security force mistreatment resulted in the deaths of several citizens in custody. Police and NSS forces tortured, beat, and harassed persons. The Government invited the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture to visit the country, which he did in November. Prison conditions were poor, and pretrial detention often lasted several months. Police routinely and arbitrarily detained citizens to extort bribes.")?

Also I hope you all caught the "secret" method of using quotation marks to "indicate" that what you are typing isn't "true." You see it's clear from the above passage that what Mr. Haas and the Iranian diplomats are engaging aren't talks. They might be literigic dances. They might be nude love-ins. They might be ultimate fighting challenges. But they aren't talks.

At the end of the day it's hard to understand what some of these hard line right wingers expect the State Department to do. It feels like they see the State Department as a sales department, getting the world ready for whatever new war the Department of Defense decides to engage in. But that is not, perhaps, the best use of the State Department.