Few will argue with me when I suggest that the best way to lead a meeting or resolve a dispute is to help all of the participants both express their views and hear the thoughts and feelings of the others. It has been many, many years since anyone thought that anything from families to committees to large corporations should be effectively managed in a strictly hierarchical style with all power emanating from the top.
Oddly, the United States has been executing strategy in a strictly hierarchical style for the last several years, with mid-east politics the example du jur.
Do you remember the war in Iraq? That was the short little incursion that we started a few years ago. It began with a consensus of the affected parties and ended quickly. Didn’t it?
Well, the Iraq war was so successful that the Bush administration is going to try it again, this time in Iran. Esquire has a wonderfully detailed article, The Secret History of the Impending War with Iran That the White House Doesn’t Want You to Know.
Two former high-ranking policy experts from the Bush Administration say the U.S. has been gearing up for a war with Iran for years, despite claiming otherwise. It’ll be Iraq all over again.
In the years after 9/11, Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann worked at the highest levels of the Bush administration as Middle East policy experts for the National Security Council. Mann conducted secret negotiations with Iran. Leverett traveled with Colin Powell and advised Condoleezza Rice. They each played crucial roles in formulating policy for the region leading up to the war in Iraq. But when they left the White House, they left with a growing sense of alarm — not only was the Bush administration headed straight for war with Iran, it had been set on this course for years.
It’s a long and detailed article but well worth the read.
In response to questions from Esquire, Colin Powell called Leverett “very able” and confirms much of what he says. Leverett’s account of the clash between Bush and Crown Prince Abdullah was accurate, he said. “It was a very serious moment and no one wanted to see if the Saudis were bluffing.” The same goes for the story about his speech in Israel in 2002. “I had major problems with the White House on what I wanted to say.”
It is not our place to dictate how other nations behave. It is certainly not our place to enforce how other nations behave.
If facilitation and consensus-building are right for groups ranging in size up to large corporations but a hierarchical style is right for the United States, what makes the USA different?
To be blunt: Mr. Bush, don’t invade Iran.
