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<header id="main-content-header" class="clearfix">
<h1 id="page-title"> The Aptly Named Anne-Marie Slaughter </h1>
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<div class="field-item even"><big><big><span
class="date-display-single" property="dc:date"
datatype="xsd:dateTime"
content="2014-05-15T00:00:00-05:00">May 15, 2014</span></big></big></div>
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<div class="field field-name-field-statement-source
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<div class="field-item even"><big><big><a
href="http://greenshadowcabinet.us/member-profile/7563">Steve
Breyman, Environmental Protection Agency,
Administrator</a></big></big></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary
field-label-hidden view-mode-full">
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<blockquote>
<p><big><big>
<em>"Political language . . . is designed to make
lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to
give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." ~
George Orwell</em>
</big></big></p>
</blockquote>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big><strong>Rise to Prominence</strong></big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Anne-Marie Slaughter had a successful academic
career at elite institutions. After receiving degrees
from Princeton, Harvard Law, and Oxford, she taught
law at the University of Chicago and Harvard
University. She was the first woman Dean of the
Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton. Slaughter is
currently President of the New America Foundation, a
centrist DC think tank (Google’s Eric Schmidt is
chairman of the board of directors which includes
Fareed Zakaria, Steven Rattner, Jonathan Soros,
Francis Fukuyama, and James Fallows). <em>Foreign
Policy</em> named her to its annual list of the
Top100 Global Thinkers in 2009, 2010, and 2011.
Slaughter lectures widely, is a member of the
Trilateral Commission, and pens a monthly column for <a
href="http://www.project-syndicate.org">Project
Syndicate</a>.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Slaughter, an international law and
international relations specialist, is best known to
the public for her essay “<a
href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/why-women-still-cant-have-it-all/309020/">Why
Women Still Can’t Have It All</a>” in <em>The
Atlantic</em>, a discussion-stimulating piece (“by
far the most popular article ever published in that
magazine” according to Wikipedia) that she later
turned into a TED talk. The essay sprang from her
stint as the first woman Director of Policy Planning
at the State Department (2009-2011), a job once held
by George Kennan. It was, according to Slaughter, her
“foreign policy dream job,” which she left for
work-life balance reasons (she was mother to an unruly
teenager) and because Princeton, like most
universities, limits professional development leave to
two years.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>She did something courageous early in her
career: as a student, Slaughter was part of the team
headed by her mentor Abram Chayes that helped the
Sandinistas ‘successfully’ sue the US in the World
Court for supporting the Contras and mining the
country’s harbors. The Court ruled in 1986 against
Washington on all sixteen counts, but the Reagan
administration refused to acknowledge the court’s
jurisdiction. US Ambassador to the United Nations
Jeanne Kirkpatrick dismissed the Court as a
"semi-legal, semi-juridical, semi-political body,
which nations sometimes accept and sometimes don't."
Numerous attempts by Nicaragua to have the UN Security
Council enforce the ruling were vetoed by Kirkpatrick.
This instance of righteous action is a rare occurrence
in Slaughter’s career.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>By 2003 she was splitting hairs in a <em>New
York </em>Times <a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/18/opinion/good-reasons-for-going-around-the-un.html">op-ed</a>
over whether the invasion of Iraq was “illegal” or
“illegitimate.” The piece was a stomach-turning
attempt to justify the invasion while appearing to
uphold respect for multilateralism and international
law. “Overall,” Slaughter concluded, “everyone
involved is still playing by the rules. But depending
on what we find in Iraq, the rules may have to evolve,
so that what is legitimate is also legal.” This after
admitting earlier in the essay that Bush initiated
Shock and Awe by his lonesome, without allies or UN
approval, which she—the renowned international
lawyer—fails to rightly describe as a crime against
humanity and a war crime.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big><strong>Reflecting on Five Years in Iraq</strong></big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>The occasion of the fifth anniversary of the
invasion found Slaughter <a
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/annemarie-slaughter/stop-gotcha-politics-on-i_b_92593.html">whining</a>
about how Tom Hayden and others had misinterpreted
some overly nuanced position of hers about preemption.
Her real lament was that “gotcha politics on Iraq”
outside the Beltway overshadowed what any fair-minded
establishment observer should see as an <a
href="http://www.opednews.com/articles/Inside-the-Fanciful-World-by-Steve-Breyman-Democracy_Empire_Hegemony_History-140503-34.html">Excusable
Foreign Policy Error</a>. </big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<blockquote>
<p><big><big>
"Hayden's post and many other commentaries
surrounding the fifth anniversary of the invasion
are a microcosm of the problem with our Iraq policy
as a whole. The debate is still far too much about
who was right and who was wrong on the initial
invasion and far too little about how, in Obama's
formulation, to be as careful getting out of Iraq as
we were careless getting in. That does not mean that
those of us who were wrong about Iraq -- with
whatever nuances, explanations, and justifications
we might care to offer -- do not have a great deal
to answer for. We do. But it does mean that until we
can fix the mess we are in, everyone who cares about
what happens both to our troops and to the Iraqi
people should force themselves to face up to the
hard issues on the ground rather than indulging in
the easy game of gotcha.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>I'll start by offering a metric for how to
assess any candidate -- and any expert's -- plan for
Iraq. The test for the best policy should be the one
that is most likely to bring the most troops home in
the shortest time (to stop American casualties,
begin repairing our military, and be able to
redeploy badly needed military assets to
Afghanistan), while also achieving the most progress
on the goals that the administration stated publicly
as a justification for invading in the first place:
1) ensuring that the Iraqi government could not
develop nuclear or biological weapons of mass
destruction (done); 2) weaken terrorist groups
seeking to attack us (this goal was based on false
premises then, but is highly relevant now); 3)
improve the human rights of the Iraqi people; and 4)
establish a government in Iraq that could help
stabilize and liberalize the Middle East. No policy
can possibly achieve all of those goals. But the
policy that offers the best chance on all five
measures is the policy we should follow, in my view.
And applying those measures to concrete policy
proposals is the debate we should be having."
</big></big></p>
</blockquote>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>For Slaughter, the “problem with our Iraq
policy as a whole” was not the sum of the ongoing and
disproportionate application of historically
destructive military force, Petraeus’s lethal
counterinsurgency doctrine, house raids, daily
instances of “<a
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0">Collateral
Murder</a>,” Abu Ghraib, porcine contractors
snorkeling up ill-gotten gains while wreaking havoc,
untold corruption both public and private, conspicuous
<a
href="http://original.antiwar.com/steve-breyman/2005/09/01/a-question-of-competence/">incompetence</a>,
or a hundred other glaring and irreparable flaws. It
was that critics of the war needed to “face up to the
hard issues on the ground.”</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Slaughter has the audacity to lecture her
critics through a set of goals the achievement of
which she fails to see is made impossible by the
continuation of the war. It’s stunning, and telling,
that her metric relies on the disingenuous post hoc
war aims of the Bush administration. She counsels
renewed destruction of Afghanistan (which foreshadows
Obama’s two surges, and which she surely recommended
while in office). She does not see that to “fix the
mess we’re in” is an invitation to endless occupation.
She fails to understand, as a large number of us who
opposed the war in the first place did years earlier,
that <a
href="http://www.antiwar.com/orig/breyman.php?articleid=7095">immediate
withdrawal</a> was the only sane Iraq exit strategy.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big><strong>Libya as Strategic Interest</strong></big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Slaughter was back in 2011 with several essays
defending NATO’s air campaign against Gaddafi, and the
US role in it (several months after she quit Hillary
Clinton’s State Department to return to the academy).
<a
href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/18cb7f14-ce3c-11e0-99ec-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=uk">One</a>
of them celebrated the toughness of liberal
interventionists like her who pushed the bombardment
of Gaddafi’s forces not just “for moral reasons” but
also for reasons of “strategic interest.” She defines
strategic interest in this case as support for
“democracy and human rights.” “This value-based
argument,” claims Slaughter, “was inextricable from
the interest-based argument. So enough with the
accusations of bleeding heart liberals seeking to
intervene for strictly moral reasons.” It’s bold to
argue via omission that the invasion of Iraq—or the
overthrow of Gaddafi—was not about oil (a word that
does not appear in the essay). The interventions
Slaughter supports tend to leave other peoples’ hearts
bleeding.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>She’s giddy about the early progress of the
successor regime (much better than the Coalition
Provisional Authority in Iraq, she thinks): “The <a
href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/d5c8fff6-ce5a-11e0-99ec-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1ViWIrOy4">National
Transitional Council</a> has a draft constitutional
charter that is impressive in scope, aspirations and
detail – including 37 articles on rights, freedoms and
governance arrangements.” Her incaution and enthusiasm
for military action (on behalf of both values and
interests) doesn’t merely stand out now, it was
notable then too. Slaughter then blasts those of <a
href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/obama-in-africa-somalia-mali-and-the-war-powers-resolution/5319069">us</a>
who complained that NATO’s bombing onslaught exceeded
the pertinent UN Security Council mandate
(consequently souring the Russians and Chinese on any
armed United Nations-backed intervention in the Syrian
civil war), and that the Obama administration ought to
have abided by the loose strictures of the War Powers
Resolution. </big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<blockquote>
<p><big><big>
"The sceptics’ response to all this, of course, is
that it is too early to tell. In a year, or a
decade, Libya could disintegrate into tribal
conflict or Islamist insurgency, or split apart or
lurch from one strongman to another. But the
question for those who opposed the intervention is
whether any of those things is worse than Col
Gaddafi staying on by increasingly brutal means for
many more years. Instability and worse would follow
when he died, even had he orchestrated a transition.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>The sceptics must now admit that the real
choice in Libya was between temporary stability and
the illusion of control, or fluidity and the ability
to influence events driven by much larger forces.
Welcome to the tough choices of foreign policy in
the 21st century. Libya proves the west can make
those choices wisely after all."
</big></big></p>
</blockquote>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>It’s not “too early to tell:” Libya has indeed
disintegrated into the chaos of tribal militias, armed
Islamist groups and criminal gangs. It’s not possible
in this essay to assess whether Libya is better off
without Gaddafi than with him. It’s clear however that
“instability and worse” has followed since his
downfall made possible by NATO aerial intervention.
That was evident virtually immediately, we do not need
to wait a decade.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>On a deeper level, the ‘better off’ question is
not the right one, especially for international
lawyers. The flippant attitude—‘regardless of
illegitimacy or illegality, let’s wait till the dust
settles and the blood dries before passing
judgment’—is common to Slaughter’s popular foreign
policy analyses. It betrays an unprincipled
ruthlessness prized in Washington that explains her
rise to and continued prominence. Transparently
imperial US international policy, whether in Iraq,
Libya or Ukraine, requires dressing up. Slaughter is a
leading member of a class of professional apologists:
the imperial costumers.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>The “real choice” in Libya was between letting
Libyans solve their own problems and great power
intervention on behalf of domestic elites soon overrun
by forces NATO could not control. There was no
“illusion of control:” it’s precisely because the West
could not control Gaddafi that he had to go (recall
Reagan’s bombing of the despot’s desert tents in
1986), Tripoli’s rendition of the Arab Spring provided
the opportunity and excuse. Note the absence of
similar interventions in Egypt, Bahrain or Tunisia.
NATO’s “ability to influence events driven by much
larger forces” is today close to zero.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big><strong>Iraq Ten Years in - Re-Roll the Film</strong></big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>On the tenth anniversary of the George W.
Bush’s aggression against Iraq, Slaughter was party to
<a
href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112701/iraq-war-10th-anniversary-symposium">one</a>
of several loathsome public displays of ersatz
contrition (or worse) by pundits and policymakers,
writing:</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<blockquote>
<p><big><big>
"Looking back, it is hard to remember just how
convinced many of us were that weapons of mass
destruction would be found. . . . I now see the
decision to invade Iraq as cynical, tragic, immoral,
and irresponsible to the point of folly. I do not
think that the thousands of U.S. and allied lives
lost were lost in vain: Only time can tell what Iraq
will become; how the Iraqi people will look back on
the toppling of Saddam Hussein and the ensuing ten
years of violence; and what role Iraq will play in
the larger Middle East. It is very difficult to
imagine any transition from Saddam to post-Saddam
without some violence and political upheaval in a
nation as fractured religiously and ethnically as
Iraq. But in hindsight, the U.S. decision to spend
tens of billions of U.S. dollars; to ignore all
knowledge, planning, and expertise about Iraq with
regard to what should happen when the bullets
stopped flying; and to ignore the opposition of many
of our closest allies in deciding when and how to
take action is virtually indefensible. And I could
not in good conscience look an Iraqi widow, parent,
or child in the eye and tell them that the tens of
thousands of Iraqi lives lost served a larger
purpose, which is a burden that every American who
did not actively demonstrate against the war must
carry. </big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>In the end, Iraq served as my political
coming of age in the way that the Vietnam War was a
coming of age for the generation ten to fifteen
years ahead of me. Never again will I trust a single
government’s interpretation of data when lives are
at stake, perhaps especially my own government. And
I will not support the international use of force in
a war of choice rather than necessity without the
approval of some multilateral body, one that
includes countries that are directly affected by
both the circumstances in the target country and by
the planned intervention. If the situation on the
ground in a country is not bad enough to mobilize at
least some of its neighbors to action, then it
should not mobilize far away military powers.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Iraq remains a country in pain. The United
States will be paying its financial and human debts
from the Iraq war for decades to come. If I could
re-roll the film, I would stop the invasion. Instead
we should mark a sober anniversary by reflecting on
all that the U.S., its allies, and the Iraqis have
lost. We can only hope we have gained a lesson in
humility."
</big></big></p>
</blockquote>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>There’s nothing “hard to remember” about how
easily academics and pundits fell for the distortions,
exaggerations and inventions of Condoleezza Rice,
Colin Powell, and Judith Miller. It remains a
wonderment eleven years later. Had Slaughter been
paying attention, she’d have seen it before in Vietnam
and the Dominican Republic in the sixties, Cambodia
and Iran in the seventies, El Salvador and Guatemala
in the eighties, and Iraq and Panama in the nineties,
Afghanistan and Iraq (again) in the aughts. And she’d
be seeing it once more in Ukraine today. The song
remains the same, only the singers have changed.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>In her defense of NATO’s action in Libya, and
again here, Slaughter falls back on the ‘there
would’ve been violence anyway’ claim regarding regime
change in both countries. What this rationalization
obscures is the significant difference in moral,
political, and yes, strategic terms of indigenous vs.
external regime change. The same goes for
revolutionary vs. expeditionary violence. The
legitimacy of a government brought to power by the
intervention of foreign powers is inferior to that
which took office through its own agency. Violence to
topple a leader considered unfriendly by leading
powers is not the same violence of domestic actors
forcefully overthrowing an autocrat.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>W’s Iraq adventure was the “political coming of
age” for someone—with advanced degrees in
international relations—forty-four years old at the
time of the invasion? This self-characterization
unintentionally doubles as admission of extreme
egotism, civic somnambulism, and/or ideological
blindness that helps explain why Slaughter, despite
her promises, repeats her mistakes.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Smart of Slaughter to take the long-view as to
whether dead US soldiers and Marines died in vain.
She’ll lionize American war dead but not Iraqi war
dead? Reversing Slaughter’s valence, she could “in
good conscience look an [American] widow, parent, or
child in the eye and tell them that the . . .
thousands of [American] lives lost served a larger
purpose”? Slaughter fails to understand—perhaps
because her political coming of age is so recent—that
those of us who did actively demonstrate against the
war (before the invasion and after) also carry the
“burden” as the calamity took place in our names,
under our flag, using our tax dollars, and with the
lives of our fellow citizens.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big><strong>Stopping Russia Starts in Syria</strong></big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Slaughter’s most recent <a
href="http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/anne-marie-slaughter-on-how-us-intervention-in-the-syrian-civil-war-would-alter-vladimir-putin-s-calculus-in-ukraine">column</a>
for Project Syndicate revolves around the devilishly
clever idea of punishing Putin for his actions in
Ukraine by pummeling Assad’s forces in Syria. This
course of action has myriad benefits, not least of
which is that it would permit “Barack Obama to
demonstrate that he can order the offensive use of
force in circumstances other than secret drone attacks
or covert operations.” Presidents are not real
presidents unless they send in the 82nd Airborne.
Slaughter desperately misses the transparent
application of American military violence (Afghanistan
doesn’t attract the press coverage it once did). The
opaque, deniable, off camera variety won’t cut it. War
in the shadows disappoints.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Parsing Putin’s motives for annexing Crimea,
Slaughter rejects the neoconservative claim that
Obama’s reticence to use direct US armed force in
Syria emboldened Russia to grab the peninsula. She
thinks it more likely that Putin wanted to redirect
his public’s attention away from the “country’s
failing economy.” (Wasn’t that what the Sochi Olympics
were about?). She does not imagine that NATO expansion
and US meddling in Ukrainian politics may have been
factors. Unfortunately, Putin now has the upper hand,
and “Western use of force, other than to send arms to
a fairly hapless Ukrainian army, is not part of the
equation.”</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<blockquote>
<p><big><big>
"That is a problem. In the case of Syria, the US,
the world’s largest and most flexible military
power, has chosen to negotiate with its hands tied
behind its back for more than three years. This is
no less of a mistake in the case of Russia, with a
leader like Putin who measures himself and his
fellow leaders in terms of crude machismo."
</big></big></p>
</blockquote>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>It does not matter that American public opinion
was solidly opposed to missile strikes against Assad
or that Obama was unlikely to receive the
congressional approval he sought. The ends justify the
means for Slaughter.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<blockquote>
<p><big><big>
"A US strike against the Syrian government now would
change the entire dynamic. It would either force the
regime back to the negotiating table with a genuine
intention of reaching a settlement, or at least make
it clear that Assad will not have a free hand in
re-establishing his rule."
</big></big></p>
</blockquote>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Direct US military action in Syria <a
href="http://www.nytexaminer.com/2012/10/neocons-to-the-front-five-reasons-to-not-intervene-in-syria-now/">would
not have</a>, cannot, and would not resolve the
conflict; its effects would be far worse than “crude
machismo.” Even the indirect sort—supplying currently
preferred rebels with anti-armor and anti-aircraft
missiles—will only prolong the suffering. Eliminating
“Syria’s fixed-wing aircraft” as Slaughter calls for
would make Assad no more likely to negotiate with the
al-Qaeda affiliates that make up the vast bulk of the
armed Syrian opposition. She likely believes that
downing Assad’s air force can be done ‘surgically;’
she appears not to understand that even such an ‘easy
mission’ would result in dead babies, collateral
damage killed by errant missiles, crashing planes and
misplaced smart bombs. Nor does she estimate the human
cost of restricting Assad’s “free hand” in the middle
of a heartrending humanitarian disaster.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>There’s the small matter that a US strike on
Syria without the backing of the United Nations
Security Council would violate international law. Good
lawyer that she is, Slaughter believes she’s found a
workaround:</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<blockquote>
<p><big><big>
"[E]ven Russia agreed in February to <a
href="http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2014/sc11292.doc.htm">Resolution
2139</a>, designed to compel the Syrian government
to increase flows of humanitarian aid to starving
and wounded civilians. Among other things,
Resolution 2139 requires that “all parties
immediately cease all attacks against civilians, as
well as the indiscriminate employment of weapons in
populated areas, including shelling and aerial
bombardment, such as the use of barrel bombs….”
</big></big></p>
</blockquote>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Too bad for Slaughter that Resolution 2139 does
not include an enforcement clause; there’s no ‘by all
means necessary’ in the document. The Chinese and
Russians would not permit that provision given their
distrust of Obama following NATO’s liberal reading of
a similar Resolution concerning Libya. Slaughter
conveniently never draws the connection (it would make
demonizing Putin more difficult), yet proffers the
same advice today. No matter, the US, and perhaps a
European or NATO ally or two, could commence
hostilities, get the job done, and only then evince
concern for international law: “After the strike, the
US, France, and Britain should ask for the Security
Council’s approval of the action taken, as they did
after NATO’s intervention in Kosovo in 1999.” Such
approval seems less forthcoming this time around.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>“In Ukraine,” thinks Slaughter, “Putin would be
happy to turn a peaceful opposition’s ouster of a
corrupt government into a civil war.” Apart from her
problematic description of the opposition, this
assessment conceals that Ukraine is a major Russian
trading partner, and the main country through which
Russia ships natural gas to Europe. Given the
centrality of those gas sales to the Russian economy,
and the near certainty a civil war would destroy
pipelines and other infrastructure, it’s fair to say
Putin would not be “happy” with a Ukrainian civil war.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<blockquote>
<p><big><big>
"Putin may believe, as Western powers have
repeatedly told their own citizens, that NATO forces
will never risk the possibility of nuclear war by
deploying in Ukraine. Perhaps not. But the Russian
forces destabilizing eastern Ukraine wear no
insignia. Mystery soldiers can fight on both sides."
</big></big></p>
</blockquote>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Slaughter is unsure about whether NATO should
risk nuclear war by deploying military forces to
Ukraine? Is she calling for the deployment of NATO
special operations forces as “mystery soldiers”? Heads
of state should probably avoid soliciting
parliamentary approval for such deployments as that
would spoil the mystery. Would she have NATO mystery
soldiers shoot it out with Putin’s mystery soldiers?</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<blockquote>
<p><big><big>
"Obama took office with the aim of ending wars, not
starting them. But if the US meets bullets with
words, tyrants will draw their own conclusions. So
will allies; Japan, for example, is now wondering
how the US will respond should China manufacture a
crisis over the disputed Senkaku Islands.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>To lead effectively, in both the national and
the global interest, the US must demonstrate its
readiness to shoulder the full responsibilities of
power. Striking Syria might not end the civil war
there, but it could prevent the eruption of a new
one in Ukraine."
</big></big></p>
</blockquote>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Slaughter provides no guidelines for when the
US should meet bullets with bullets, but it appears to
be everywhere all the time lest it appear to appease
tyrants. Obama was recently in Japan to reassure Abe,
in a clear message to China, that he had Japan’s back
in disputes over the small rocky uninhabited islands.
With her call for the US “to shoulder the full
responsibilities of power” it’s as if Slaughter were
auditioning for the title role in a twenty-first
century remake of <em>Dr. Strangelove</em>.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Despite the pious hope expressed in her mea
culpa on the tenth anniversary of the invasion,
Slaughter did not “learn a lesson in humility” from
Iraq. She is not to be believed when she cries “never
again.”</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<blockquote>
<p><big><big>
"Never again will I trust a single government’s
interpretation of data when lives are at stake,
perhaps especially my own government. And I will not
support the international use of force in a war of
choice rather than necessity without the approval of
some multilateral body, one that includes countries
that are directly affected by both the circumstances
in the target country and by the planned
intervention. If the situation on the ground in a
country is not bad enough to mobilize at least some
of its neighbors to action, then it should not
mobilize far away military powers."
</big></big></p>
</blockquote>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Yet we have her advice about how to punish both
Syria and Russia for Putin’s behavior in Ukraine, a
crisis replete with misrepresentations,
misinterpretations, and misstatements emanating from
Washington. And a crisis thus far lacking armed
intervention approved by a multilateral body or
neighbors mobilized to military action. Rather than an
illegal attack on Syria or covert action in Ukraine,
Slaughter should counsel her favorite “far away
military power” to stand down.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Might Americans (and the rest of the world)
sleep more soundly now that Anne-Marie Slaughter no
longer sits around the tables of power in Washington?
Maybe. There’s also the prospect that she’s become
even more dangerous to world peace. Obama’s foreign
policy is made almost completely within the White
House (the State and Defense Departments implement but
do not make much policy in this administration).
Obama’s White House and Clinton-Kerry’s State
Department are highly attuned to criticism from
Capitol Hill, and work feverishly to anticipate and
head it off it through policies amenable to John
McCain and Lindsay Graham. A high public profile was
not possible during Slaughter’s government service.
Her frequent lectures, TV appearances and op-eds since
returning to the private sector may propel her voice
further and farther today than ever before. Her post
at the New America Foundation provides the largest
public audience of her career. The “About” section of
the Foundation’s website includes this statement:
“Abroad, the United States has yet to fashion
sustainable foreign and defense policies that will
protect its citizens and interests in a rapidly
integrating world.” Should we listen to Anne-Marie
Slaughter, it never will.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>~<a
href="http://greenshadowcabinet.us/member-profile/7563">
Steve Breyman</a><em> serves as Administrator of the
Environmental Protection Agency in the Ecology
Branch of the Green Shadow Cabinet.</em></big></big></p>
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