No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington

30 TRANSFORMATIONAL DIPLOMACY

NOT EVERY ISSUE in the first month of the year related to the Middle East, though it seemed that way. I needed to keep advancing the agenda for transformation of the department, where management challenges were stacking up. In particular, I was determined not to produce a budget through the bottom-up logrolling process that was in place. I decided to give a speech at Georgetown University that laid out the reform agenda for State. The speech was a bit wonkish, but the foreign policy community took note, and that was the point.

Referring to the phrase I’d used at confirmation, I talked about transformational diplomacy, focusing on the need to foster the growth of well-governed democratic states. The point was that the work of diplomats should focus less on political reporting—we really didn’t need long cables about British politics since I talked to the Brits every day—and more on deeds. What we needed was an expeditionary foreign service that would work on AIDS relief in Botswana; democracy promotion in Egypt; and women’s education in Afghanistan.

We established a number of American presence posts, which would allow us to place a single Foreign Service officer in a foreign city where we did not have (and couldn’t afford financially) to establish a consulate. This was in recognition of the increasing importance of regions and cities outside the capital, such as the industrial hub of Pusan in South Korea.

I also made a major push to encourage the study of critical languages. Don Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Margaret Spellings, and I launched a “Critical Languages Initiative” to support the study of Farsi, Chinese, Arabic, and other “hard” languages. I reminded everyone that the National Defense Languages Act had done the same during the Cold War to increase the number of speakers of Russian and East European languages. The U.S. government needed to do the same for the post-9/11 world.

In my Georgetown speech, I said hundreds of Foreign Service officers would be shifted from Europe to Asia and the Middle East. Anyone seeking promotion to senior rank would need to gain expertise in at least two regions. I acknowledged the growth in hardship posts around the world and gently suggested that working in Vienna and Paris was not the future of the Foreign Service. That would soon lead to a Time magazine article highlighting State’s new breed of officers, who were dubbed, aptly and affectionately, “the Hellhole Gang.” Among those featured were Anne Patterson, our ambassador to Colombia and later Pakistan; David Satterfield, an Iraq advisor who’d also served in Lebanon; David Welch; and others. Ryan Crocker, who’d been serving in Pakistan and would soon head to Iraq, belonged on the list too. The message was clear: the future was in hard places doing hard things.

To help ensure the State Department was thinking innovatively about these initiatives, I appointed an outside advisor committee on transformational diplomacy cochaired by Barry Blechman and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Thomas R. Pickering. To assess the Department’s democracy promotion efforts, I convened a similar panel of outside experts led by Anne-Marie Slaughter, then the dean of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of International Affairs and later director of policy planning under my successor.

The most controversial aspect of the Georgetown speech, though, was the creation of a new office of director of foreign assistance to unify the budgets and development policies of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department. USAID had always considered its mission to be separate from and yet equal to that of State. Development was thought to be a long-term process and—theoretically—free of political and strategic motivations: a kind of U.S. largesse at the taxpayers’ expense.

In many countries, Britain for example, the two agencies were completely separate. This led to bizarre circumstances in places such as Afghanistan, where the British foreign secretary could not direct foreign assistance to support the war effort. Thankfully, in the United States, USAID was not a stand-alone agency, its budget being determined by and defended before Congress by the secretary of state. But there was still a kind of uneasy tension in which the USAID administrator reported through the secretary of state, though precisely what that meant was left a bit fuzzy. I made clear that USAID needed to keep its institutional integrity but had to be subject to the secretary’s direction.

The problem was that the cultures of State and USAID were very different, the latter eschewing the idea that it was involved in “U.S. foreign policy.” That attitude, I was sure, would have come as a shock to taxpayers, and I referenced that disconnect in defending my proposed changes to Congress. While I was a proponent of compassion (as in the President’s AIDS relief effort), I needed to make the point that the United States is not a nongovernmental organization. We can’t simply focus on a single issue at the expense of others. I saw—and still see—nothing wrong with the proposition that development assistance ought to support broader U.S. foreign policy objectives.

The Bush administration was in a strong position to make this case since we had dramatically increased foreign assistance worldwide. In our view, U.S. interests were tied to democracy and good governance, and development assistance was critical in achieving those goals. What good was it to elect a new democratic government if it couldn’t provide for its people? Sometimes the United States needed to give foreign assistance for purely strategic purposes—even if the recipient wasn’t a poster child for democracy. But we wanted those cases to be the exception and not the rule.

I ASKED Randall Tobias, who’d launched PEPFAR, the President’s AIDS relief program, to take the job as director of foreign assistance and, concurrently, administrator of USAID. His tenure was pretty rocky—Randy could be heavy-handed—but he achieved a lot. Most important, when I conducted budget reviews, the regional administrator for USAID and the regional assistant secretary presented a unified budget. I could finally answer questions such as “How much money do we spend on Nigeria?” without referencing twenty different accounts. And I could make a reasonable argument that our money was going to encourage democratization and development as well as fight corruption—if not always successfully.

A visit to a small credit union in Mexico, where I spoke with a tiny woman receiving a microfinance loan to expand her ceramics and crafts store, or to the highlands of Guatemala, where farmers once living at subsistence levels were now shipping produce to Walmart, made our efforts come to life. The farmers even took the opportunity of our visit to chastise the Guatemalan president for failure to deliver a promised road. Democracy was alive and well in that remote place. The experience fitted my conception of the changed nature of diplomacy. We needed to be involved in transforming people’s lives, not just reporting on the activities of their governments.

I felt even better about those countries that were granted aid through the Millennium Challenge Corporation. The secretary of state chaired the board of the institution that I’d helped the President design in 2003. So much foreign assistance had been wasted over the years, pocketed by corrupt leaders whose wives wore expensive jewels while their people suffered in poverty, ignorance, and disease. The MCC used strict criteria and a process of negotiation to create compacts between aid recipients and the United States. The countries that were selected were certified using quantitative indicators such as governing wisely, fighting corruption, and investing in their people. For countries that did those things well and earned an MCC contract, the sums of money were large: $698 million to Tanzania, $547 million to Ghana, $697 million to Morocco, and $461 million to El Salvador, to name a few. But we set the bar high, and not every country scored well enough to be certified, at least at first. Countries that weren’t quite ready were given threshold awards that targeted specific areas of reform. If threshold countries implemented the reforms and took the program seriously, they could become eligible for a full MCC contract and potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance.

The incentives started to change behavior, and we saw leaders from practically every poor country show up with a paper demonstrating why they would be good MCC candidates. Since a compact had to have the support of civil society (farmers’ cooperatives, labor unions, environmentalists, businesspeople), the process also brought governments closer to their people. The successful recipients formed “MCC University,” where they shared their experiences with prospective candidates.

The work was slow, and sometimes the Congress—and eventually the President—complained that the appropriations weren’t being spent expeditiously. And sometimes countries fell back—including when the newly elected Sandinistas in Nicaragua began to unravel democratic and market-oriented economic reforms in 2008. Eventually John Danilovich, who’d been our ambassador in Brazil, took over as chief executive officer of the MCC, replacing Paul Applegarth, who’d successfully launched the program. John brought new energy and focus, and the money started to flow. Yet with all the ups and downs, the MCC garnered bipartisan support and remains to this day a successful innovation in the delivery of foreign assistance.

I was especially proud when, toward the end of our term, we were able to certify Liberia’s eligibility for an MCC threshold program. Liberia stood for all that we’d tried to do in Africa: ending civil wars, promoting democracy, and providing hope and a chance at prosperity. Two years after we helped to liberate that country from Charles Taylor’s brutality, the Liberian people elected as president a Harvard-trained World Bank economist, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. She liked to be called “Mother” or “Ma Ellen” by her people, and she fit the part. A heavyset, bespectacled woman who favored brilliantly colored traditional African dress, she looked as though she was determined to pull her people out of poverty and despair—by the ear if necessary.

First Lady Laura Bush and I attended her inauguration in Monrovia on January 16. We arrived that morning because there was no place to stay. Even the ambassador’s residence was basic, with intermittent electricity and water. In the hot midday sun, we listened to Johnson Sirleaf’s optimistic charge to her people to claim their future. I was reminded of the close connections between African Americans and Liberians when the choir sung “The Heavens Are Telling” from Haydn’s Creation, a song that was a favorite of the choirs of historically black colleges.

The assembled African leaders, gathered to welcome the first woman into their ranks, applauded heartily as she spoke—at least until she said members of her administration would be required to publish their personal finances. “In this respect I will lead by example,” she said. “I will be the first to comply by declaring my assets.” That drew silence. No other leader really wanted to follow her lead in that regard.

After the ceremony, Laura and I walked down the street to our car. We had to avoid potholes and cracks in the sidewalks that might catch our high heels and send us tumbling. The Liberians had done their best, but the infrastructure was the worst I’d seen anywhere in the world. When the Pentagon decided to establish a separate command for Africa, called AFRICOM, Johnson Sirleaf lobbied to place its headquarters in Monrovia. A U.S. military presence would bring infrastructure improvements, she reasoned. It was a good idea, but the Pentagon demurred, citing the monumental investment that it would require.

I would return to Monrovia with President Bush in 2008. The Liberian people were so grateful for what we’d done. We were met at the airport and driven to the President’s office, where the elevator malfunctioned. The President and Johnson Sirleaf climbed the five flights of stairs—the fit George Bush stopping on each landing to “rest,” so that his friend could rest too.

Shortly after that, we were led to a creaky stadium to watch President Bush review the newly minted security forces while a band played John Philip Sousa. Apparently, a retired U.S. colonel had decided to devote a couple of years to giving the Liberians a proper military band. And then the Liberians put on the best lunch they could—delicious despite the insistent flies—and invited the President to dance with their leader, an invitation he took up, much to the delight of his hosts and a bit to the dismay of his staff.

That scene would be repeated whenever we visited the African continent: women in Tanzania, wearing skirts with the likeness of the American President emblazoned on them; the President dancing with the Ghanaian first lady and “raising the roof,” blending in so effortlessly, in fact, that Assistant Secretary Jendayi Frazer questioned his bloodlines. There were numerous other examples. Responding to a question in 2008 about African pride in candidate Obama and whether they looked forward to his election, the Tanzanian president said that it was, of course, for Americans to decide. Then he added, “For us, the most important thing is, let him be as good a friend of Africa as President Bush has been.” I loved it. Africa was emotionally satisfying for me—not surprisingly, since I was the descendant of slaves. Curiously, it felt like George Bush’s home turf too, and that made me very proud.

I RETURNED to the Middle East in February to continue to lay the groundwork for a resumption of negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis. The Quartet’s position on Hamas had allowed the Israelis to follow suit and distinguish between Abbas and the PA and the Hamas legislature. The Arabs were upbeat, believing both in the President’s commitment to Middle East peace and in their capacity to keep Hamas at bay. I always found the press conferences a bit distressing since the Arabs would never admit what they had told me: that they wanted to see Hamas out of business. But it was good enough to have them quietly engage in policies to isolate the terrorists who they feared almost as much as the Israelis did.

I’d just boarded the plane in Egypt heading to Riyadh. David Welch followed me into my cabin. All the blood had drained from his face. A powerful bomb had exploded at the Askariya Shrine in Iraq. Called the “Golden Mosque” because of its gilded dome, the shrine is one of the most revered religious sites in Shia Islam. I got hold of Zal Khalilzad, our ambassador in Baghdad, who said that he’d been making the rounds of Iraqi leaders. We’d quickly learn that the attack had been the work of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whom Osama bin Laden had hailed as the “prince of al Qaeda in Iraq.” Zarqawi was a fanatic who hated Shia. He was also diabolically brilliant and had decided to set Shia against Sunnis in a bid to spark an Iraqi civil war.

The attack had come in the aftermath of national elections, as the Iraqis were trying to form the first government under their new constitution. Yet, for the moment, they seemed to be responding to the tragedy with maturity. Iraqi leaders from across the religious and political spectrum boldly condemned the attack using similar terms. Zal said that the leaders wanted to visit the shrine together to show interfaith solidarity. I thus landed in Lebanon focused not on Iraq but on the work ahead to support March 14, the political alliance dedicated to Lebanon’s independence, in escalating pressure on Syria.

Lebanon is a beautiful country with an alpine climate to the north and Mediterranean vistas along the coast. On this particular February day—perhaps it was the sense of possibility—Beirut seemed to be sparkling. The forces that had come together after Hariri’s assassination just one year before were clearly in control. Syria, Hezbollah, and their Iranian patrons were off balance and seemingly in retreat.

We made the turns through the streets of Beirut toward the Grand Serail, a distinctly Ottoman-themed sandstone building with beautiful multicolored tiled floors and walls. Fouad Siniora, the prime minister, came forward to meet me as I rushed past the crush of press. We paused briefly and posed for a picture and then moved into Siniora’s cavernous conference room. Fouad was almost an accidental prime minister. He was known as an honest but somewhat uninspiring economist who’d taken the job largely because Rafik Hariri’s son Saad was not seasoned enough just yet. Fouad spoke very quickly, sometimes making it hard to understand him, and he was not an imposing presence. But as time passed, we’d come to marvel at Siniora’s toughness and competence and long for similar leadership in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Fouad was circumspect in what he said as we sat sipping Middle Eastern coffee. His government, balanced between Lebanon’s political and religious groups, included more than a few Syrian sympathizers, such as the foreign minister, a Shia, who was at the table. I told myself to be careful to say nothing that would force Fouad into an uncomfortable dialogue about Syria or Hezbollah. There was no doubt in my mind that the foreign minister would be on the phone to Damascus moments after I left the building. I even managed to invite the gentleman to Washington, though I sincerely hoped he wouldn’t come.

After almost an hour, Fouad asked to see me in his private office. There he gave full voice to his hopes and his fears—reminding me that he was walking a tightrope, trying to lead Lebanon toward greater sovereignty and democracy with Syria and Hezbollah ready and able to pounce at any time. He asked for economic assistance, help in building the army, and one other favor: Could I talk to the Israelis about returning Shebaa Farms? The roughly ten square miles that constituted Shebaa Farms weren’t objectively worth very much. The land had been occupied in 1967 and was tied up in the dispute between Syria and Israel over the Golan Heights. The Israelis now maintained an important surveillance post there.

The United Nations had determined that Shebaa Farms was a part of Syria, so when Israel pulled out of Lebanon in 2000, the United Nations had certified the Israeli withdrawal and declared the matter closed, as all Lebanese land had been vacated. But some Lebanese didn’t accept that view and dredged up old maps to “prove” their case that it was Lebanese land. Hezbollah seized on Shebaa as a convenient rationale for their militancy. I promised to talk to the Israelis about it and thought that I had a fair chance of convincing Olmert of the wisdom of evacuating Shebaa Farms.

At the time of my February 2006 visit, there was a dispute about Émile Lahoud’s presidency because his term had been extended at Syria’s behest in contravention of the Lebanese constitution. Lahoud was not, to put it mildly, a friend of democracy or the United States, and our allies wanted him out. Publicly, I stayed out of the controversy, saying only that the Lebanese needed a president in whom they had confidence and who would defend their sovereignty. But I pointedly decided not to meet with him. As his Syrian connections were well known, the message was clear enough.

When I had met him in 2005 on my first trip to the country, he had been dressed in a mustard-colored suit that only highlighted his almost cartoonish artificial tan. After I shook his hand, I felt like I needed a shower. I didn’t mince words with him, saying that he needed to press his “sponsors” to fully comply with UN Security Council resolutions that called on Damascus to respect Lebanese sovereignty. Lahoud made his case that he was a Lebanese patriot first and, of course, wanted his country to control its own affairs. Right, I thought and ended the session as quickly as I gracefully could. This time I hoped that the decision not to meet with him would fully underscore our disdain for him and what he was doing to his country.

After an audience with the Maronite Catholic patriarch of Lebanon at a monastery high in the mountains, and a meeting at the equally cloistered residence of Walid Jumblatt, the former Communist who now led the Druze community (one of Lebanon’s politically important religious minorities), I felt I’d touched all the necessary bases. Lebanon was a very complicated place and every trip there required the utmost in tact and discretion. I loved Beirut but was always relieved when it was time to leave.

THIS WASN’T the case in the United Arab Emirates, where the ruling family was disciplined, organized, young, and direct. I always felt relaxed and at ease in the UAE, the only federal state in the Arabian peninsula. True, there was the complication of having to meet two separate royal families: the ruler of Dubai and the bin Zayeds in Abu Dhabi. There is a big difference between the two most powerful emirates. Abu Dhabi is conservative and controls most of the oil and power in the confederation. That oil wealth is being used to fund an Arab renaissance with great museums and concert halls and cutting-edge international business investments.

Dubai, on the other hand, is known for its man-made island in the shape of a palm tree, its claim to have the tallest building in the world, and its indoor ski slope—yes, an indoor ski slope—right in the middle of the desert. It would soon become known too for profligate spending and near bankruptcy. But in 2006 it was the banking center of the Middle East and a growing international business hub.

So I headed toward the UAE focused on the upcoming conversation about the war on terrorism, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and the Israeli-Palestinian issue. I looked forward to my meeting with the mother of the bin Zayeds, Sheikha Fatima. A power in her own right, she was a fierce defender of her family and a real patron of women’s education and empowerment. She wore an abaya (the black robe) and a traditional silk mask that covered all but her eyes. Yet it wasn’t hard to see that Sheikha Fatima had a major voice with her sons and thus in the direction of her country. The sheikha didn’t meet men outside her family, but she could meet with me. There were some real advantages to being a female secretary of state in the culture of the Middle East.

I landed in Abu Dhabi, the capital, feeling more relaxed and glad that I had only one more relatively easy stop before returning home from a grueling trip. When I got in the car, however, the ambassador asked what I would say about the Dubai Ports World controversy. I knew that there was a simmering problem because the huge conglomerate had purchased a company that operated terminals in six U.S. ports, including New York. For more than a week, there had been angry congressional reaction to the proposed deal, but I assumed it would pass. I called the President just to make sure. “Tell them we believe in the deal, free markets, and our friends,” he said.

I visited first with the ruler of Dubai, who was visiting the capital, and delivered that message, moving quickly to talk about the other issues on my agenda. Over dinner with Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan, the crown prince, and his brother Abdullah, the foreign minister, I repeated what the President had told me. When I left the UAE, I assumed that all was well.

I flew home to Washington. A few days later the President called. “We aren’t going to be able to fade the heat on Dubai Ports World,” he said. “You need to call the Emirates and tell them.” That afternoon I called Abdullah bin Zayed al Nahyan to deliver the bad news. I invited him to Washington so that we could show that our relationship hadn’t been affected by the collapse of the commercial deal. Perhaps we could sign the civil nuclear deal that had been pending for a while. Abdullah accepted my invitation but said that it might be better to wait. (We eventually signed the agreement for Congress’s consideration in January 2009.)

Dubai Ports World pulled the offer to manage the ports on March 9. To this day I don’t know why we didn’t see it coming. Arabs, ports, New York—that should have been a red flag. When I teach this case to my business school students at Stanford, they’re unfailingly critical of our being blindsided. I try to explain the factors that led to the deal’s demise—among them the fact that the clearance of the acquisition never got beyond the deputy secretaries because there was no national security issue; overconfidence that others saw our relationship with the UAE the benign way that we did; and a deep belief in the importance of low barriers to foreign investment. There were many reasons. But we should have seen the uproar coming, and we didn’t.