The Bush administration does not understand diplomacy and issue-based negotiation, so they drop more bombs.

With reference to:

U.S. dropping more bombs on Iraq by Charles Hanley (AP) 06 June, 2007. Commander in Chief Bush II has doubled the rate of bomb dropping on Iraq from 229 bombs in 2006 to 239 year to date. This count does not include air attacks using guns; this is just the bomb count. Civilian casualties (that make the news…otherwise they are not counted) are up to at least 50 per month. This is the equivalent of having 836 bombs PER MONTH drop on U.S. cities, with 500 civilian casualites. Imagine. It’s good exercise for our brains.

Mercy Corps envoy chides Bush on N. Korea aid by Richard Read, 06 June 2007. President Bush II cut off food aid to Korea in 2005 to get their government to comply with an agreement. Today children are scrounging for weeds in N.Korea.. (Portland Oregonian..not available online)

I’m reminded of an experience with a parent when I was heading a small private school. We had a 4-year old boy that was terrorizing his class. He could be sitting happily working beside another child one minute, and the next he’d be hitting the other child and grabbing their work.

The teachers tried all the strategies they knew and finally called me in to speak with the mother to disenroll the child; he was too hazardous in the classroom without special staffing to keep an eye on him. The mother explained to me that she had been a good Mom; she had always done her best to control his behavior. When he was a baby she yelled at him about bad behavior and began slapping his hand to make him compliant. This did not work, so she began spanking his bottom with her hand while she admonished him. When this, too, failed she began using a belt. This did not work either, so she was making him stand with his hands up in the air in front of a wall for 15 minutes. If his hands touched the wall, he was belted. What could she do? Nothing worked! Sounds like our policy toward Iraq, beginning with sanctions in 1990 and continuing with $10 billion a month in full force military action.

Here’s another anecdote that comes to mind. I do not remember where I read it. When you train a dog to jump over a stile, it can take 2-3 jumps and a reward for success. You now have a trained dog. If after training the dog, you give it an electric shock while it is performing correctly, it will take several HUNDRED more attempts with rewards to retrain the dog.

President Bush’s foreign policy resembles the mother’s attempts to parent and we are in the same situation as the dog trainer with traumatized dog. We could probably have met all of our national security goals concerning Iraq by offering some treats while Saddam Hussein jumped over a few stiles toward a more democratic society. Now we have a mess. So what do we do in Iraq, now? It has been abundantly clear since Bush took office that the entire administration can only see the sucker’s choices–“Should we sit back and do nothing about Iraq or should we invade and occupy the country?” “Should we stay the course with a military presence (now forecast to remain for the next 50 years) or should we cut and run?” There is no evidence that this is just rhetoric; they genuinely seem unable to see any alternatives to full physical force and doing nothing.

When you can only see two choices, hit or be hit, that is scary. The world becomes a scary place, because your choices are so limited. In fear, you lash out to preempt being hit yourself. This characterizes our current administration. They behave like frightened little boys, who have a tiny toolbox for dealing with a harsh world. You can hear the pleading in Bush’s voice, “Don’t you get it, it is a scary world out there and we have to be big, intimidating and ferocious to be safe.” That’s clearly his perspective on the world.
Their tools are the most primitive of a human’s arsenal; they strut like peacocks, fluff up their manes like lions, bristle their back hairs like dogs and growl and bite. Our national diplomacy is now characterized by name calling, patronizing statements of what others must do, threats of violence in attempts to intimidate other nations into doing things as we think best. Every bit of evidence says that this is an administration that is completely clueless about how to negotiate on the issues. Is there a trained and experienced mediator in this administration? Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In (Paperback) by Roger Fisher and William L. Ury has been on bestseller lists for twenty years. Has anyone in this administration learned its lessons? If anyone reading this has an example of policy level professional negotiating coming out of this administration, let me know. I’ve not read of any examples.

It should be no surprise that our State Department, home to our diplomatic corp is short 1,100 staff and has had no new assets added since Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice took over. (Rice Blamed for Staff Shortage, Low Morale Among US Diplomats by P. Parameswaran, Agence France-Presse, 06 June 2007)

So, it seems naïve to think that with some political pressure, we can get the administration to choose a smarter path; they simply do not have the wisdom to implement it. Sadly, the Democrats now in power in Congress seem unable to step up and be the adults, be the professionals in the room.

The Iraqis may be the ones who finally step up and say enough. Last year, to the dismay of the majority in Iraq’s Parliament, when the UN mandate for our occupation came up for renewal, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki went around the Parliament and asked the UN for an extension of the mandate. It comes up for renewal again in December, and this time the Parliament has preempted al-Maliki by passing a binding resolution that will guarantee lawmakers an opportunity to block the extension of the UN mandate under which coalition troops now remain in Iraq when it comes up for renewal in December. Parliamentary leaders have said they have no intention of requesting an extension without significant conditions, including a timetable for withdrawal.

Iraq is in the position of an abused spouse with the U.S. The Bush II administration keeps saying we love them, but we are dropping 40 bombs each month on their cities. Ultimately, they have to stand up and say, “Stop.” And, ultimately they must take charge of their fate. Too bad, we haven’t got anyone in this administration with the ability to guide them towards this healthy independence.