The Village is abuzz with the words "Team of Rivals" when it comes to the incoming Obama administration's foreign policy team. The media willfully ignores both the recent and distant past to arrive at the conclusion that unity can be achieved by politicians putting aside politics, and working for the common good of the country. In an ideal world, maybe that is so. In a real world, not so much.
Lincoln's team of rivals was dysfunctional. Poor communication between the Secretaries of War, State, and Treasury led to frequent debacles. Nearly a dozen commanding generals came and went. Hundreds of thousands of union soldiers were killed. Profiteers frequently abused the system and obtained money for the development of projects that never came to be. Lincoln nearly lost re-election, and the war.
George W. Bush tried a team of rivals too. It was a spectacular failure. Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and George Tenet were all long-time rivals. They fought over who would get the resources--and credit--for the war on terrorism. When one agency's intelligence unit created a document another agency didn't like, they created a document which told policy makers what they wanted to hear.
As a depressing Frontline episode makes clear, the result was that no one knew the truth. A small cabal of administration insiders wrote fictional stories about supposed threats, leaked them to the press, and then appeared on television to reference those stories. When administration officials dedicated to the truth tried to speak out, stories were leaked to the press to paint those officials in negative light. When people acting on behalf of the President and Vice President knew that the intelligence they had was shoddy, they failed to inform policy makers of their knowledge, for they feared the recriminations that would follow.
And we all know the result. The Iraq War happened. This country went to war without a plan to secure the peace or honor our veterans upon their return home. The situation spun out of control because no one could speak truth to power and tell President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld that more troops were needed. The three people who tried to--Eric Shinseki, Thomas White and Colin Powell--were all kicked to the curb. And all the while, Osama bin Laden escaped from the caves of Afghanistan, and took refgue in an ungovernable part of Pakistan, where he has regrouped.
We want to believe in the ideal of people putting their country over their own political interests. But politicians are politicians; they will always fight over the credit and the limelight. Barack Obama should be aware of the utter failure of previous "teams of rivals," as he embarks upon the difficult task of being this nation's Commander-in-Chief in the wake of the George W. Bush disaster.