<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:st1="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
<head>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
<meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 11 (filtered medium)">
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="State"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="country-region"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="place"/>
<!--[if !mso]>
<style>
st1\:*{behavior:url(#default#ieooui) }
</style>
<![endif]-->
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Verdana;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
span.EmailStyle17
{mso-style-type:personal-compose;
font-family:Arial;
color:windowtext;}
p.articletext, li.articletext, div.articletext
{mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0cm;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0cm;
text-align:justify;
font-size:8.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;
color:#2A2A2A;}
span.manchettebig21
{font-family:Verdana;
color:black;
font-weight:bold;
text-decoration:none none;}
span.red1
{font-family:Verdana;
font-variant:normal !important;
color:#9C0B0B;
font-weight:bold;}
@page Section1
{size:612.0pt 792.0pt;
margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
-->
</style>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]-->
</head>
<body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple>
<div class=Section1>
<p class=MsoNormal><span class=manchettebig21><b><font size=4 color=black
face=Verdana><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>Has <st1:country-region w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:country-region>
been shut out from the corridors of power in <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Washington</st1:place></st1:State>?</span></font></b></span><br>
<em><b><i><font size=1 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:8.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black;font-weight:bold'>Think tanks play vital role
in giving voice to emigrants in the formulation of foreign policy</span></font></i></b></em><br>
<font size=1 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Verdana'><a
href="http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=76924">http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=76924</a><br>
</span></font><br>
<strong><b><font size=1 color="#666666" face=Verdana><span style='font-size:
8.0pt;font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;font-weight:normal'>First Person Nadeem
G. Maasry</span></font></b></strong><font size=1 face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Verdana'><br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>The Daily Star</span></b><br>
<span class=red1><b><font color="#9c0b0b" face=Verdana>Thursday, November 16,
2006</font></b></span></span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=articletext><font size=2 color="#2a2a2a" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>No sooner do the drums of war start reverberating in
the Middle East than analysts of every background in the West begin their own
"war" of prognostications and proposed solutions. Most of these
analysts appear to be motivated by emotions and ideas that draw on their own
narrow experiences, or theories derived from models utilized only because they
address each analyst's own narrow view of the problem. The sad reality is that
many of these ideas do not correspond to the facts on the ground. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articletext><font size=2 color="#2a2a2a" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>Meanwhile, the decision-making process in the <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
a country whose population has just passed the 300 million mark, continues to
become more complicated and problem-ridden. Having less than 5 percent of the
total population of the world and yet contributing close to 30 percent of the
planet's gross domestic production, <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> has not been able to resist
becoming involved in the affairs of every single country. As a result, a
system, a machine-like web structure had to be developed to enable <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s
policy managers to confront changing world circumstances on a daily basis. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articletext><font size=2 color="#2a2a2a" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>I will limit myself to the perceived impact of this
"policy-making structure" on <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s current situation. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articletext><font size=2 color="#2a2a2a" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>Considering that <st1:country-region w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:country-region>
is endowed with a fairly high level of Western-educated intelligentsia and a
relatively significant reservoir of sympathy in <st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region>,
the question is whether <st1:country-region w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:country-region>
has been well-represented in the inner halls of <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Washington</st1:place></st1:State>. In other words, have the
Lebanese been involved to an important degree in formulating any of the options
being considered by US foreign policy decision-makers relative to the Middle
East, and more recently to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>
itself? Judging from the events of this past summer, the short answer is no. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articletext><font size=2 color="#2a2a2a" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>A good number of Lebanese who are unaware of how badly
missing their input has been from the centers of power in Washington have often
wondered why the United States, so steeped in technology and so successful in
the management of government and business, could come up with a foreign policy
that could produce an Iraq-style failure. Perhaps a knowledgeable and
analytical visit to <st1:State w:st="on">Washington</st1:State>, which has
become even more directly involved than ever in the <st1:place w:st="on">Middle
East</st1:place> after September 11, 2001, would help explain the seeming
anomaly. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articletext><font size=2 color="#2a2a2a" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>Three aspects of Washington's foreign policy decision-making
process detract from an independent, consistent and sustainable foreign policy
in the Middle East, where the particular and organic relationship that binds
the US and Israel acts as a shunt to an even-handed American stance in the
region. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articletext><font size=2 color="#2a2a2a" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>If we are to consider the White House as the ultimate
decision-making center, or more accurately, the inner sanctum where the choice
is made among a number of foreign policy options, then we are looking at a
leadership under President George W. Bush that has been weakened on several
political and economic fronts and which opted to compensate for this deficiency
by enhancing its presidential powers through an ongoing war on
"terrorism" in the guise of added security for the American people. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articletext><font size=2 color="#2a2a2a" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>This leadership found itself in need of an
increasingly complex system for the management of political, economic, military
and security affairs in a globalized world. As a result, a system of overworked
staff and advisers has developed over the years that works like a mega-computer,
requiring, by definition, a number of functionaries, highly specialized in
their respective fields, performing mechanically like cogs in an Orwellian
machine. Yet, the leadership's overall vision, reconciled with an American
concept of a melting pot, seems unable to grasp the composite structure of the
different nations of the world, with differing cultures and anthropological
traits. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articletext><font size=2 color="#2a2a2a" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>It becomes less puzzling, then, why the minions who
keep the decision-making process going, no matter how smart and sincere, find
themselves oscillating between theories of grand design for a "world
order" of democracies and the day-to-day requirements of putting out fires
in an unpredictable and changing world - a situation better known in the White
House as crisis management. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articletext><font size=2 color="#2a2a2a" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>Ironically, <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>, rich with well-to-do
expatriates from every corner of the world who have successfully found the
"land of opportunity," has proven unable to reap maximum benefits
from the local knowledge of citizens of foreign extraction. Many of these
emigres left behind birthplaces in which they found discord, while others
became too mainstream American to be able to discern the old realities of their
countries of origin. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articletext><st1:country-region w:st="on"><font size=2 color="#2a2a2a"
face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Lebanon</span></font></st1:country-region><font
size=2><span style='font-size:10.0pt'> is not so different: Given that a good
number of the commercially minded successful immigrants come from humble
backgrounds in which they were excluded from an active role in a basically
feudal political system, their climb up the American ladder distances them even
further from <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s
age-old political intricacies. Inadvertently, they have contributed at times to
US policies that stood at variance with <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s current national
interests. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articletext><font size=2 color="#2a2a2a" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>This decision-making system found itself inadequate to
handle a multitude of world problems, including situations which may not have
reached critical proportions, and inevitably had to look for "outside
help." Many observers around the world, and particularly in countries like
<st1:country-region w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:country-region>, have come to
believe that the outcome of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s
foreign policy has been mainly influenced by lobbyists and pressure groups. In
this regard, they fail to comprehend the significance of the role of outside
advisers and think tanks in the formulation of strategic options presented on a
systematic basis to the decision-makers, and especially those in the White
House where time, pay and man-hours are limited. Once habituated to this
independent input, the decision-makers who solicit outside advice on a
continual basis have become reliant on this advice.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articletext><font size=2 color="#2a2a2a" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>
<iframe marginwidth=0 marginheight=0
src="http://www.dailystar.com.lb/bannerin1.htm" frameborder=0 width=300
scrolling=no height=250>
</iframe>
Even the Europeans, who have developed impressive centers for political and
economic research, do not always distinguish between an American think tank and
their own policy research institutes staffed with renowned professors and
esteemed research workers. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articletext><font size=2 color="#2a2a2a" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>A well-placed <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Washington</st1:place></st1:State>
think tank, by contrast, would normally have among its staff former White House
employees and others from the different branches of government, the military
and the various intelligence agencies. A good number of them use the think tank
as a convenient quarter where they "hang their hats," meet one
another and bide their time while they wait for an administration change and
hope to get back into a role more directly involved in policy making. If they
leave for jobs on the West Coast, for example, they risk being forgotten at the
center of power in <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Washington</st1:place></st1:State>.
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articletext><font size=2 color="#2a2a2a" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>Normally, their being on the "outside" would
afford them a platform to express more openly and freely their points of view. With
few exceptions, however, the think tanks and other private non-lucrative
foundations are in constant need of funds and donations. It follows that these
institutions are hindered by the demands of the donors who give tax-deductible
contributions with specific topics and special interests in mind. It is perhaps
in this area of an ever-mushrooming activity - not to call it a business - that
the Lebanese and Middle Easterners in general, with the noted exception of the
Israelis, find themselves unable to compete. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articletext><font size=2 color="#2a2a2a" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>At the same time, the American media have found it
convenient to publish and reproduce articles on foreign affairs contributed by
self-appointed experts who use the umbrella of one foundation or another to
promote their captive ideas. The result: a cacophony of voices confusing the
American reader, as well as the decision-makers. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articletext><font size=2 color="#2a2a2a" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>The US State Department, with its worldwide network of
embassies and employees, has been weakened in recent years due to a number of
factors. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articletext><font size=2 color="#2a2a2a" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>In a "dangerous" world where many US
embassies have become virtual fortresses under siege, qualified young Americans
find it more interesting to work for multinationals with more benefits and a
higher salary than serve their country as diplomats in insecure areas of the
world with less compensation. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articletext><font size=2 color="#2a2a2a" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>This "attrition" in the number of good
American representatives has been mostly felt in Islamic and several other
developing countries. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articletext><font size=2 color="#2a2a2a" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>Historically, the State Department had been more
immune to the influence of private interests and pressure groups, primarily
because its untainted sources of information derive directly from its own
functionaries based around the world. Once it came under serious challenge by a
White House bent on using foreign issues for local political gain, this role diminished.
Similarly, the various intelligence agencies find themselves less independent
of the whims of an administration that has managed to heap the blame for recent
policy failures on these same agencies. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articletext><font size=2 color="#2a2a2a" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>As a consequence, a weakened secretary of state now
functions in the good graces of a White House, which in turn has become
addicted to the use of foreign policy experts, even though many of these
experts happen to have particular agendas. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articletext><font size=2 color="#2a2a2a" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>In a sense, this dependency of the secretary of state,
as well as the White House, on a system that resembles a mega-computer reduces
the qualities and requirements for leadership. Increasing criticisms,
therefore, of the president and his team as being light-weighted, or, for
example, completely one-track minded in the Middle East, do not take into
account that they have become more like drivers conducting a sophisticated
machine, and that, when under pressure, their decisions are but the
"resultants of forces," to borrow a principle from mathematics. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articletext><font size=2 color="#2a2a2a" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>In the absence of high-level Lebanese input into this
complex policy machine, is it any wonder that Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice said last July that she was unable to see why she would visit Lebanon on
her peace mission to the area, notwithstanding the fact that the purpose of her
travel was to help negotiate a cessation of the war in Lebanon?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articletext><em><i><font size=2 color="#2a2a2a" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>Over 35 years in the United
States, Nadeem G. Maasry, a Lebanese banker, served on the Brookings
Institution's Business Advisory Council, the Center for Strategic Studies'
Quadrangular Forum and the Washington Quarterly Economic Roundtable. The author
wishes to dedicate this article to the memory of the late George N. Frem, who,
in his unrelenting efforts on <st1:country-region w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:country-region>'s
behalf, understood the inner workings of the American foreign policy system and
the significance of <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Washington</st1:place></st1:State>'s
think tanks.</span></font></i></em><font size=2><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
</body>
</html>