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Diplospeak Translator: The Condi and Iraq
Time to roll out a new feature here at Undiplomatic: the diplospeak translator. The idea is to take statements by U.S. government officials and convert them into plain English. Allow me to provide an example:
DIPLOMAT: We had a free and frank discussion.
TRANSLATOR: The meeting involved a lot of screaming. Toward the end we started throwing chairs at one another.
Our first subject: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, affectionately known around here as The Condi.
With Maliki-palooza breaking out this weekend, nobody seemed to notice that The Condi took time out from her busy golfing schedule Saturday to talk to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer about her short game Iran and Iraq, among other issues.
In the first part of the interview, Wolf tries to get The Condi to admit that sending Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns to meet with the Iranians actually involves talking to the Iranians. Alas, The Condi is far too smart to be tricked into saying anything so self-evident. Burns didn’t go to talk to the Iranians. He went to listen!!
TRANSLATOR: He went to talk to the Iranians.
Eventually Wolf throws up his hands and moves on to Iraq. As far as I can tell, this exchange took place before Maliki slapped the Obama bumper sticker on his car and gave the Administration a massive migraine. Nonetheless, it still is worth reviewing for the sheer density of spin and misdirection.
WOLF: Let’s talk about Iraq right now…. There is word, as we speak right now, of what Bush Administration officials are now calling an agreement between the U.S. and the Iraqi Government for a “general time horizon for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.” Now, that’s an ambiguous phrase, but it sounds like… a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops.
THE CONDI: I think you will find, Wolf, that in anything that we talk about with the Iraqis and anything that is agreed that we and the Iraqis are going to want to be sensitive to the conditions…. And so, it’s not at all unusual to start to think that there is a horizon out there in the not-too-distant future in which the roles and responsibilities of the U.S. forces are going to change dramatically and those of the Iraqi forces are going to become dominant.
TRANSLATOR: Can you believe that they want us out after all we’ve done for them? Those ungrateful jerks. Just wait until we leave — boy will they be sorry then.
WOLF: Is this – is that a euphemism for a timeline for withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq?
THE CONDI: I think that you will find that both the United States and Iraq want to be very attentive to what is actually going on on the ground…. And there is no problem in having an aspirational, if you will, time horizon for doing that.
TRANSLATOR: They wish.
WOLF: The Washington Post reported the other day that it was now unlikely that you’d be able to negotiate what’s called a Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqis before your Administration ends and that that would probably be left to the next Administration. Are they right?
THE CONDI: Well, we will find a way with the Iraqis to have a basis for our forces to continue to do what they need to do for Iraq. Iraq wants that as well…. One of the things that’s happening is that the Iraqis want to do more and they’re asserting their sovereignty and we’re trying to be sensitive to their sovereignty.
TRANSLATOR: We’re going to stick around as long as we want, even we have to set the draft Status of Forces Agreement on fire and ram it down Maliki’s throat.
WOLF: They say they want a timeline.
THE CONDI: They have just said that what we want is a kind of aspirational time horizon, which allows us to look out into the future and say, here’s what we expect in terms of American forces and their roles and responsibilities and those of combat forces.
TRANSLATOR: The Iraqis can call it anything they want. We’re not going anywhere.
WOLF: But if they say the United States should leave, what would the U.S. do?
THE CONDI: Well, we’re there at the invitation of the Iraqi Government. But I think… we would be foolish and they would be foolish to put at risk those gains by too rapid a decline in the American forces there. But we can look at the situation, we can have an aspirational time horizon, we can look at the changing roles and responsibilities of Iraqis and Americans. Those are all perfectly logical things to do.
TRANSLATOR: We’re hoping against hope that Maliki doesn’t really mean any of this. Because if he does, well, basically, we’re screwed.
WOLF: Here’s what John McCain said back on May 30th in Milwaukee. He said this: “I believed for four years, nearly, that the strategy that was employed in Iraq was wrong and I fought against it. It was a flawed and failed strategy and I fought against it.” Now you’ve been involved in the strategy from day one as the National Security Advisor, now the Secretary of State. Is he right, that for four years, there was a failed strategy in Iraq?
THE CONDI: I believe, Wolf, that we were making progress in Iraq until, really, 2006, when conditions changed and they changed a lot. They changed as a result of a new strategy by the then-leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Zarqawi, who was determined to set Iraqis against Iraqis in civil conflict. And frankly, with the bombing of the Golden Mosque, he succeeded. And it is true that the strategy that we were pursuing was not going to improve the situation in Iraq, had we stayed with it. And that’s why the President ordered a review of that. That’s why the President ordered an increase in American forces. That’s why we went to a more classical counterinsurgency strategy. It’s why we had a civilian surge, including increasing the number of Provincial Reconstruction Teams. Yes, we did make a change in strategy at the end of 2006, the beginning of 2007, because as the President said, it wasn’t working. Now, when you know something isn’t working, when you know conditions have changed, of course, you need to make an adjustment, but the President made that adjustment.
TRANSLATOR: If I talk long enough and use really big words like counterinsurgency, maybe you won’t notice that I never got around to answering your painfully embarrassing question. Because, hey, let’s face it: we didn’t just do everything wrong, we did it badly. Don’t think we’ll ever admit it, though.
WOLF: Let’s talk about Afghanistan and Pakistan right now. The new government in Pakistan, are they doing everything you want to do to go after the Taliban and al-Qaida in those tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan?
THE CONDI: It’s very clear that more has to be done to stabilize that border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. More has to be done.
TRANSLATOR: Oh thank God. No more questions about Iraq. Even if Afghanistan is a mess, nobody is paying that much attention to it anyway.
Have a passage you want run through the Diplo-Speak Translator? Leave word in the Comments section.
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