February
27, 2003
U.S.
Diplomat's Letter of Resignation
The
following is the text of John Brady Kiesling's letter of resignation to
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Mr. Kiesling is a career diplomat who
has served in United States embassies from Tel Aviv to Casablanca to Yerevan.
Dear
Mr. Secretary:
I
am writing you to submit my resignation from the Foreign Service of the
United States and from my position as Political Counselor in U.S. Embassy
Athens, effective March 7. I do so with a heavy heart. The baggage of my
upbringing included a felt obligation to give something back to my country.
Service as a U.S. diplomat was a dream job. I was paid to understand foreign
languages and cultures, to seek out diplomats, politicians, scholars and
journalists, and to persuade them that U.S. interests and theirs fundamentally
coincided. My faith in my country and its values was the most powerful
weapon in my diplomatic arsenal.
It
is inevitable that during twenty years with the State Department I would
become more sophisticated and cynical about the narrow and selfish bureaucratic
motives that sometimes shaped our policies. Human nature is what it is,
and I was rewarded and promoted for understanding human nature. But until
this Administration it had been possible to believe that by upholding the
policies of my president I was also upholding the interests of the American
people and the world. I believe it no longer.
The
policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only with American
values but also with American interests. Our fervent pursuit of war with
Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been
America’s most potent weapon of both offense and defense since the days
of Woodrow Wilson. We have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective
web of international relationships the world has ever known. Our current
course will bring instability and danger, not security.
The
sacrifice of global interests to domestic politics and to bureaucratic
self-interest is nothing new, and it is certainly not a uniquely American
problem. Still, we have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence,
such systematic manipulation of American opinion, since the war in Vietnam.
The September 11 tragedy left us stronger than before, rallying around
us a vast international coalition to cooperate for the first time in a
systematic way against the threat of terrorism. But rather than take credit
for those successes and build on them, this Administration has chosen to
make terrorism a domestic political tool, enlisting a scattered and largely
defeated Al Qaeda as its bureaucratic ally. We spread disproportionate
terror and confusion in the public mind, arbitrarily linking the unrelated
problems of terrorism and Iraq. The result, and perhaps the motive, is
to justify a vast misallocation of shrinking public wealth to the military
and to weaken the safeguards that protect American citizens from the heavy
hand of government. September 11 did not do as much damage to the fabric
of American society as we seem determined to so to ourselves. Is the Russia
of the late Romanovs really our model, a selfish, superstitious empire
thrashing toward self-destruction in the name of a doomed status quo?
We
should ask ourselves why we have failed to persuade more of the world that
a war with Iraq is necessary. We have over the past two years done too
much to assert to our world partners that narrow and mercenary U.S. interests
override the cherished values of our partners. Even where our aims were
not in question, our consistency is at issue. The model of Afghanistan
is little comfort to allies wondering on what basis we plan to rebuild
the Middle East, and in whose image and interests. Have we indeed become
blind, as Russia is blind in Chechnya, as Israel is blind in the Occupied
Territories, to our own advice, that overwhelming military power is not
the answer to terrorism? After the shambles of post-war Iraq joins the
shambles in Grozny and Ramallah, it will be a brave foreigner who forms
ranks with Micronesia to follow where we lead.
We
have a coalition still, a good one. The loyalty of many of our friends
is impressive, a tribute to American moral capital built up over a century.
But our closest allies are persuaded less that war is justified than that
it would be perilous to allow the U.S. to drift into complete solipsism.
Loyalty should be reciprocal. Why does our President condone the swaggering
and contemptuous approach to our friends and allies this Administration
is fostering, including among its most senior officials. Has “oderint dum
metuant” really become our motto?
I
urge you to listen to America’s friends around the world. Even here in
Greece, purported hotbed of European anti-Americanism, we have more and
closer friends than the American newspaper reader can possibly imagine.
Even when they complain about American arrogance, Greeks know that the
world is a difficult and dangerous place, and they want a strong international
system, with the U.S. and EU in close partnership. When our friends are
afraid of us rather than for us, it is time to worry. And now they are
afraid. Who will tell them convincingly that the United States is as it
was, a beacon of liberty, security, and justice for the planet?
Mr.
Secretary, I have enormous respect for your character and ability. You
have preserved more international credibility for us than our policy deserves,
and salvaged something positive from the excesses of an ideological and
self-serving Administration. But your loyalty to the President goes too
far. We are straining beyond its limits an international system we built
with such toil and treasure, a web of laws, treaties, organizations, and
shared values that sets limits on our foes far more effectively than it
ever constrained America’s ability to defend its interests.
I
am resigning because I have tried and failed to reconcile my conscience
with my ability to represent the current U.S. Administration. I have confidence
that our democratic process is ultimately self-correcting, and hope that
in a small way I can contribute from outside to shaping policies that better
serve the security and prosperity of the American people and the world
we share.
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