From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Sat Sep 12 2009 - 17:11:01 EDT
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/article.aspx?id=4283
The Importance of Maintaining Diplomatic Relations
H. Allen Holmes | 10 Sep 2009
In recent years, many American officials have regarded withholding
diplomatic relations as a way to punish countries for actions ranging from
human rights abuses, to failure to abide by international law, to specific
treaty violations and acts of war. But state-to-state relations among
nations provide an essential framework for the conduct of foreign
relations. Having no relations, and the resulting prolonged absence of a
diplomatic presence in a country, seriously handicaps America's ability to
achieve major foreign policy and national security goals. Diplomatic
relations should therefore always be maintained, unless security requires
closing the embassy.
Those who argue that withholding relations can be used to correct a
nation's undesirable behavior do so under the belief that the boost in
image and standing that comes from relations with the United States will
lead the targeted nation to make the necessary sacrifices to regain
recognition by the U. S. government. The problem with this line of thinking
is that it usually doesn't work.
In the meantime, the absence of diplomatic relations with a country of
interest to the U.S. represents an almost-crippling obstacle to the
successful pursuit of foreign policy goals. Why? No senior diplomatic
presence on the ground means that important policy initiatives are sent
through third parties or contacts in international organizations such as
the U.N. Such indirect contact deprives the U.S. government of the
capability for a resident ambassador to intervene in a crisis, to question
and to listen -- all so critical to diplomatic persuasion by a chief of
mission speaking with the authority of the President.
Another serious disadvantage of shuttered embassies is that the U.S.
government has no lower-ranking, language-proficient officers in the
country, meaning no valuable eyes and ears moving around the country,
observing and talking to its citizens. This core diplomatic skill can
provide invaluable opportunities to develop trusted relationships, often
the basis for informed reporting to Washington. One can imagine how useful
it would have been in the aftermath of the Iranian presidential election to
have had even a modest cohort of Farsi-speaking diplomatic officers in an
embassy or American-staffed interests section in Tehran. Such a presence
today would also allow U.S. consular visits to imprisoned American
citizens.
What's more, re-establishing diplomatic relations is no simple matter for
the Department of State. U.S. administrations have a great track record for
painting themselves into a corner by curtailing relations with considerable
brio, with the result that when it is in the national interest to resume
normal relations, the path is blocked. Members of Congress or special
interest groups have little difficulty finding reasons to insist that the
culprit country first earn back recognition by renouncing past positions
and unfriendly posturing.
The underlying view seems to be that if the subject country does not share
American positions, and is unwilling to abandon hostile attitudes toward
U.S. policies, then clearly it is not a country worthy of diplomatic
relations with the United States. That appears to have been the prevailing
U.S. attitude toward Iran in recent years.
But we don't have to like a country or admire its form of government to
have diplomatic relations. The United States certainly did not respect the
Vichy French government in unoccupied France in 1940. But maintaining an
ambassador allowed American consular officers to assess the loyalty of the
French army to the puppet government, resulting in the largely unopposed
U.S.-British landing of 100,000 troops in North Africa in November 1942.
Similarly, a Baghdad embassy in 2002 would have seen how much of a Potemkin
village Iraq was. Reporting by seasoned American diplomats on the scene
might have changed the U.S. government's assessment of Iraq's WMD ambitions
and capacity.
Today, the contested results of the Iranian presidential elections make it
impractical to resume normal diplomatic relations. But after 30 years of
having no trained American diplomats on the ground in Iran, U.S.
authorities are even more clueless of Iranian dynamics today than they were
in the 1990s when Iran quietly began its nuclear program. This kind of
diplomatic vacuum is clearly contrary to U.S. foreign policy and national
security interests. We need to revert to a more practical approach to
diplomatic relations.
During the Cold War, we fought Soviet efforts to subvert countries trying
to develop themselves free from Moscow's influence. But despite our bedrock
opposition to the Soviet system and foreign policy, we maintained relations
with the U.S.S.R., had diplomats in each other's countries, tracked each
other's espionage activities, talked to each other's governments and
ordinary citizens, and gathered vast quantities of information on each
other's attitudes and activities at home and abroad. We operated in a
practical manner and negotiated historic breakthroughs in arms control. Our
diplomatic relations never signified approval of the Soviet regime, but
rather recognition of a state with which we had business to conduct in our
national interest, as well as in the collective interest of our allies.
It's time to restore a more realistic, practical approach. We should always
maintain state-to-state relations, with diplomatic representation at the
level most beneficial to U.S. national interests -- whether ambassador,
charge d'affaires or some other level. But the goal should be to keep
American diplomats on the ground and in contact.
H. Allen Holmes is a former career diplomat who served as the U.S.
ambassador to Portugal from 1982-1985 and as assistant secretary of state
for Politico-Military Affairs from 1985-1989. He is currently an adjunct
professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.
Photo: The former U.S. embassy, Tehran, Iran (Photo by Bertil Videt,
licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2).
----[This List to be used for Eritrea Related News Only]----