Arm-Twisting

"Oh, it's been a long journey from Milan to Minsk, Rochelle, Rochelle!"
--Bette Middler song from fictional musical Rochelle, Rochelle,
featured in Seinfeld

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The fictional character Rochelle's voyage seems no less absurd than deputy assistant secretary of defense for coalition affairs Debra Cagan's junket "from Tirana to Skopje, and on to Chisinau and Astana, among other luminous world metropolises," in order to drum up a few more coalition participants.

As The Times recently reported,

"In Chisinau - you guessed it; that's the capital of Moldova - Cagan asked for more sappers in Iraq. Moldova currently has 11 bomb-disposal experts there. Yes, 11.

"In downtown Tirana, hub of a 20th century exercise in communist folly and now a place in need of American money, Cagan pressed the Albanians to go beyond their 120-strong contingent in Iraq. Albania is considering another 125 to 150 troops.

"As for Cagan's stops in the Macedonian capital of Skopje and Kazakhstan's Astana, it's unclear what transpired. Macedonia has 40 troops in Iraq; the Kazakhs have 27 military engineers. Other states visited included Ukraine, which may offer a little help in Iraq, and the Czech Republic, which got promises of military equipment."

"The 168,000 U.S. troops already account for about 94 percent of the forces there. The largest other contributor, Britain, is to halve its presence to 2,500 next year."

"Against this fraying backdrop, the strange idea of Pentagon brass spending two weeks hop-scotching a continent to cajole countries - many economically hard-pressed - into sending a platoon or two looks less outlandish. That's where we are seven years into the Bush administration: stretched to the limit."

Not only stretched to the limit, but lacking convincing justification for staying. If the U.S. can get more bodies to hop on, it is the argument from mass: "We can't let down such a convicted juggernaut, can we, now."

It is the same as the fallacious argument from loss: "So many good soldiers have died; we can't let that be in vain." So, we have to let more keep dying, to somehow vindicate the previous deaths, which vindicate the previous. . . It becomes a house of mirrors. A funhouse, which isn't very fun.

"The United States is as isolated in Iraq as a great power can be. A first term spent riding roughshod over friends and vaunting 'coalitions of the willing' over alliances has not been righted by a second term of diplomacy rehabilitation. Wounds linger."

As absurd as this project to prop up the facade of coalition is, the article fails to address the main problem with this diplomacy of desperation, namely: Why is the Department of Defense (DoD) conducting negotiations that should fall under the purview of the Department of State (DoS)? Negotiations between governments is a State function.

The U.S. -- if it is to remain the U.S. --needs to keep its agencies operating within their charters.

The DoD is not lead agency in the U.S. government in effecting diplomatic relationships and enlisting coalition partners. This is a further denigration the DoS, the diminution of which has been a hallmark of the administration.

America is not a military nation. The military is but one function of the government, and it does not determine policy when dealing with other nations.

The article concludes: "A U.S. administration casting around for soldiering scraps in Moldova and Macedonia should be careful about saber-rattling toward Iran." Not a bad caveat.