Failed Middle Road Diplomacy: Former UN Weapons Inspector Hanz Blix and the Invasion in Iraq - Essay Example

Failed Middle Road Diplomacy: Former UN Weapons Inspector Hanz Blix and the Invasion of Iraq Political Psychology Research Proposal January, 2009 Background Prior to the US invasion of Iraq in March of 2003, the United Nations Weapons Inspector Hanz Blix was placed in a very challenging position that significantly strained international relations, as his official testimony to the UN was persistently distorted by US officials determined to invade Iraq regardless of his findings. The more that his testimony demonstrated that he and his team found no evidence that Saddam Hussein was in possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction [WMD], the more that US officials Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld made commentary contradicting his findings. This research project intends to analyze the failed diplomacy efforts of former UN Weapons Inspector Hanz Blix that precipitated the excessive levels of distortion surrounding his official testimony and related exchanges that took place after 9/11. To that end, political psychology can help to demystify these failed efforts at international diplomacy demonstrated in his efforts to diffuse an extremely tense and volatile international crisis. Although Blix fulfilled his ideologically-neutral role as a UN Weapons Inspector throughout the debacle, his middle road diplomatic style can be summarized, in retrospect, as an unmitigated disaster. In the shadow of an imminent invasion of Iraq by the US, neither US nor EU hegemonic superpowers scrutinizing his inspection efforts were satisfied with his reports. To explore these failed diplomatic efforts, the current research project intends to compare and contrast the historical and psychological forces at play that wedged Blix between two disparate styles of international superpower diplomacy in operation at the time of his analysis, discuss the possible justifications for his middle road approach that failed to diffuse these tense international interactions, and describe how his inability to directly negotiate or otherwise influence US or EU officials exacerbated his failed diplomacy; all factors of failed diplomacy expediting the subsequent invasion of Iraq. The working hypothesis therefore, suggests that both the US and the EU have very different styles of diplomacy, that as an allegedly neutral operative of a neutral international peace-keeping committee associated with the United Nations he was prohibited from formally demonstrating an orientation toward either a US or the EU diplomatic style, and that in his desire to objectively and rationally approach the question of WMD in Iraq, he chose the middle road diplomacy approach which failed to endear his team to either US officials (seeking an excuse for an invasion), or the EU (seeking evidence that an invasion was unnecessary). The research project proposed intends to show that Blix’s testimony to the UN demonstrated his approach to the problem was offering a process-oriented diplomatic solution for the long term, while superpowers on both sides of the Atlantic were instead, awaiting an action-oriented diplomatic solution for the short-term to either facilitate, avert, or delay an invasion. Was Blix’s decision to adhere to a middle road approach to diplomatic style consistent with and unavoidable in his neutral role as a UN operative without the benefit of structures or financial resources typically used to exercise influence among hegemonic superpowers ? Did his long-term middle road diplomacy exacerbate the crisis by isolating the UN institution and his team of weapons inspectors as they chose diplomacy strategies that would inevitably cause simultaneous friction among both US and EU officials for failure to adhere to one style of diplomacy or another ? Did his interactive role on the ground in direct contact with Iraqi officials who themselves vacilated between cooperation and coercion make it unlikely for him to display anything other then a middle ground approach to negotiations ? This research project proposed intends to show that neutrality-oriented middle road diplomacy was exercised by Blix throughout the Iraq crisis, and that this pattern is actually part of the larger social psychology of diplomacy implemented by the UN that serves to mediate between US and EU superpower diplomacy styles. Before proceeding further, it may be useful to provide a brief overview of relevant theoretical frameworks and formal research methodologies may be useful to advance this analysis. Review of the Literature Contrasts in Superpower Diplomatic Style The diplomacy surrounding critical international crisis such as UN weapons inspections in Iraq can provide fortuitous conditions to explore international social interactions taking place within the transactional typology advanced by Handy (1976). The negotiations at these spectacles and the diplomacy driving them can be viewed as calculative transactions [fairly explicit exchanges involving tilted but harmonious controls], cooperative transactions [creative pursuit of mutually beneficial exchanges with balanced controls], and coercive transactions [exchanges occurring through concentration of powers with the method of control involving threat of punishment that can include deprivations]. These concepts were later applied directly to political exchanges driving international relations by Lebow (2007). According to historical diplomatic theory advanced by Logevall, 2004, American and European styles of diplomacy vary dramatically as a result of their origins. European diplomatic thought has a rich tradition rooted in cultural accommodation, while United States with its isolationism and absence of invaders was unable to develop a similar quid pro quo approach to international relations. [T]here is a fundamental reason why American officials defined their choices so narrowly, why diplomacy held almost no place in [contemporary international negotiations due in part to] Americans attitudes toward European-style diplomacy, with its emphasis on mutual give-and-take. Geographic seperateness allowed Americans to indulge in such notions. Americas neighbors were weak, and through the early years of the twentieth century was to a large extent shielded from predatory powers by two vast oceans. Both before and after attaining great-power status, therefore, American lacked the necessity to negotiate and compromise continually in order to survive and prosper. 1 The distinct origins of diplomatic styles contrasting the EU from the US are not limited to ancient history, and have instead deepened divisions in international relations under contemporary political conditions. The United States clearly has a history of using coercive diplomacy while Europe has a history of using cooperative diplomacy. Iraq is hardly an exception. After 9/11, Europeans had a distinctively non-coercive negotiation-oriented reaction to the possibility of WMD discoveries in Iraq, and anti-American sentiment escalated there dramatically as a result of persistent distortions of Blix’s UN testimony by US officials who were bent on an invasion and other forms of coercion. The US coercive diplomatic style escalated throughout the WMD crisis, and has, as a result, led to long term deleterious consequences damaging America’s historically amicable relations with allies around the world. This [hard power] reflex has contributed to Americas plummeting international reputation, and--as is evident from Iraq--it is an approach which can be staunchly resisted, circumvented, and undermined by terrorists and militias. It has even alienated many traditional allies of the United States who abhor terrorism. If the use of U.S. power proves counterproductive, it is hardly a virtue. Hard power alone is not what matters. What really counts is the ability to get things done, which is what power is, after all. 2 Now and throughout their historical evolution, the EU and the US have demonstrated very distinct styles of diplomacy, as well as beliefs in the efficacy of their contrasting methods of cultural influence and other interactive mechanisms driving international relations. This rigidity has often resulted in tension between the two hegemonic nations, as well as other risks threatening harmonious exchanges. At this point it may be useful to examine constrasting elements driving the unique styles of diplomacy demonstrated by both. Diplomacy Types Elements of Cooperative and Coercive Diplomatic Styles The current research proposed intends to demonstrate that Blix and his team of UN weapons inspectors diplomacy efforts using long-term, process-oriented, middle road neutrality failed as a result of their decision not to emulate the coercive or cooperative diplomatic styles of either the US or the EU. By identifying relevant social psychological elements of cooperative and coercive diplomacy, we might determine why he circumvented both styles of interaction. Psychoanalytic approach to cooperative diplomacy have been cited by Montville (1989) as the greening factor. Here, psychoanalysis is deployed in formal efforts to enhance human understanding by optimizing international relations through commitment to reduce past ethnic conflict through public recognition of those victimized by past transgressions. Beyond these Freudian approaches to negotiated harm reduction as a mechanism to improve prognoses for the future of humanity, Druckman (1996) suggests that coercive styles of US diplomacy are more of an indication of disparities of power and authority then any authentic coercion, per se. Doran (1997) argues that a preoccupation with diplomatic style is actually an indication of the absence of any authentic substance driving international relations. Garrity (1997) disagrees with all these competing perspectives and suggests that the Kissinger record on US and EU cooperative and coercive diplomacy is the most comprehensive in that both are determined by ideal roles each superpower perceives itself in relation to global demands, as a sort of collective exogenous process of international hegemonic identity construction. [One] key concept [in the European tradition] is the balance of power an international order in which no nation is dominant. Each nation maintains its independence by aligning itself, or opposing, other nations according to its calculation of the imperatives of power. Kissinger is not an unqualified admirer of [European approaches]. He warns that European-style diplomacy tempts its practitioners toward overextension. The American diplomatic tradition [...] is a rejection of raison d’etat in favor of [...] exceptionalism. [T]he United States [vacillates between] isolationism [or] crusading internationalism [where] America’s role in the world was justified not by the need to sustain the balance of power, but by the obligation to spread its principles throughout the world. 3 Each superpower’s style of diplomacy is therefore implemented, according to Kissinger, by fulfilling their idealized role in nurturing or policing international relations. Since 9/11 the US has intensified what George (in Levy 2008) called coercive diplomacy. Coercive diplomacy and deterrence are political and psychological strategies that must be directed by political leaders, coordinated with diplomacy, and sensitive to the adversarys political constraints, world views, and perceptions. Even more fundamentally, strategies of deterrence, coercive diplomacy, and crisis management cannot be pursued in isolation, but must be subsumed within a coherent foreign policy or grand strategy that includes crisis prevention as an important aim and that specifies the conditions under which the limited use of force might be appropriate. [George’s] defined coercive diplomacy as persuading the adversary to stop what it is doing or to undo what it has done. 4 Diplomaacy through coercion is believed by by some to be an effective form of threatening behavior modification that is occasionally required to drive international relations, that may involve military violence if necessary. Others like Lebow (2007, p. 32) disagree and claim that “[i]n the modern world, the use of terror and violence as a deterrent has lost much of its efficacy.” As far as the case under examination focusing on weapons inspections in Iraq is concerned, the current research intends to demonstrate that Blix failed to emulate either US coercive or EU cooperative forms of diplomacy. As a neutral UN Weapons Inspector, his middle road diplomacy will be shown to have backfired, leading both superpowers to delegitimate his findings and wildly reinterpret his results to serve their own intentions. Elements of Calculative Diplomacy According to Hofstede (2004), diplomats are creative bridge builders between different people and different cultures harmoniously reconciling contrasting worldviews. These different views of the world sometimes create tension in international relations. Through diplomacy, tensions can be reduced, objectives accomplished, and mutual understanding reinforced. Diplomats are specialists at bridging cultural gaps between the countries where they are posted and the countries they represent. Outsiders often underestimate the degree to which governments and citizens of different countries think, feel and act differently as a result of the different ways in which they were socialized as children. The gaps deal with ways of handling power, ways of handling ambiguity, the strength and consequences of family and other ingroup ties, the emotional and social implications of being a woman or a man, and the time span of need gratification. Diplomats experience these gaps and while they may not be aware of the system behind them, most have developed skills to deal with them in getting their governments’ messages across. Diplomats share with other diplomats a professional culture, regardless of their country. This professional culture enables them to see two sides of a problem and to remain on speaking terms with colleagues from very different cultures. Resolution of burning international problems demands trust and cooperation between diplomats and politicians, which is a precious asset that merits careful conservation. 5 Handy would categorize this perspective as one reflecting calculative transactions, defined as fairly explicit exchanges involving tilted but harmonious controls. Blix and his team clearly exercised calculative diplomacy, known in international relations literature as middle road diplomacy. Here, stakeholders possessing fewer resources and structures than are typically available to superpowers may have milder negotiation styles, but are still capable wielding tremendous influence to actually get things accomplished. The problem in the case involving Iraq’s UN team of weapons inspectors was that by choosing neither coercive nor cooperative diplomacy styles, mistrust surrounding his diplomatic approach led both superpowers to discount or otherwise delegitimate his findings as well as his teams long-term policy recommendations. Given the difficulties surrounding access and interpretation of all the complex subtle and overt nuances of public and private diplomatic negotiations surrounding the crisis, how might the proposed analysis objectively measure this controversial hypothesis involving middle road diplomacy using non-cooperative, non-coercive, highly calculative transactions ? It should be noted from the onset that there is no agreed definition of a middle power and middle power diplomacy [which tends to be based on the notion that] ongoing peace and international security should require a decision-making approach which utilises the specialised and task-related skills of all states, not just the great powers. [...] In the absence of structural or material outcomes, middle powers must rely on diplomatic skills and energy in the pursuit of [...] interests [often involving] certain diplomatic behaviour [such as] multilateral coalition-building.6 The research proposed intends to provide quantitative evidence that Blix and his team worked diligently using calculative diplomacy to engage in maximum coalition-building among both US and EU members, which unfortunately failed as a result of calculative recommendations reflecting neither cooperative or coercive measures preferred by each influencial UN Security Council member. Methodology Content Analysis Using UN Testimony Using the official UN transcripts outlining the testimony of Hanz Blix and his team of UN Weapons Inspectors, the analysis subject official testimonial documents generated by Blix to a quantitative content analysis to explore the frequencies of texts that reflected either cooperative, calculative, or coercive diplomatic styles. Transcripts will be audited, relevant testimony will be extracted, and frequencies measured. Testimony content focusing on the absence of evidence of WMD will be scanned to determine if description of events that took place in Iraq were intentionally detrimental to peaceful reconciliation [coded –1 as coercive diplomacy], were intentionally constructive to peaceful reconciliation [coded +1 as cooperative diplomacy], or neutral [coded 0 as calculative]. Criteria to evaluate diplomacy styles will involve the use of biased opinions without regard for facts, tone of interactions, whether the text contained coercive language, whether an opportunity for cultural sensitivity to bridge the conflicts between affected communities was recognized, ignored, or exploited; and finally, whether information was presented in a non-inflammatory neutral, fair, and balanced format. Transcript testimony text extracts that were characterized as detrimental to diplomatic reconciliation will be categorized as reflecting coercive styles, while cases that were constructive to diplomatic reconciliation will be categorized as reflecting cooperative styles. The working hypothesis therefore suggests that Blix chose an intentionally calculative diplomatic style, which was subsequently resisted by all superpower stakeholders involved, and which inadvertently led to the rejection of each of his recommendation for continued inspections and other forms of diplomatic restraint in lieu of an invasion. To support that hypothesis, the dependent variable is thus identified as: H1: efficacy of calculative diplomacy With evidence elicited through a quantitative content analysis focusing on official testimony submitted to the UN, the variable efficacy of calculative diplomacy is asserted to be dependent on factors such as superpower stakeholder trust and institutional legitimacy. Because dominating audiences composing the UN Security Council are officials from hegemonic nations such as the US exercizing coercive diplomacy, or the EU exercizing cooperative diplomacy, Hanz Blix testimony will be shown to have been discounted by both disparate stakeholders due to the diminished trust and institutional legitimacy associated with middle road diplomacy. Thus, the independent variables, trust and institutional legitimacy, are expected to be evident in testimony interactions and other briefings where subjectively-oriented sSecurity Council stakeholders refused to accept Blix’s testimony irregardless of overwhelming evidence. Through these variables, the analysis intends to illustrate the inefficacy of middle road diplomacy and its’ inability to influence entrenched audience preferences. These variables will be shown as the primary determinants of failed UN Weapons Inspector policies that led to the invasion of Iraq. Operationalization Because the current analysis attempts to assert that irregardless of their objectives, non-cooperative and non-coercive middle road diplomacy styles will tend to be rejected by superpowers in an international crisis, and that the articulation of these diplomacy styles will be rejected and overtly distorted to conform to expectations consistent with preferred diplomatic negotiation and styles perpetuated by hegemonic world powers. To that end, discourse patterns and sequences will be extracted and examined substantively as well as empirically by the following categories: because interactions can be characterized as extended discourse sequences reflecting longer more extended stories (Schenkein, 1978), it may be useful to examine the frequency of embedded repetition in interviews, or story-telling which refers to historic biographical vignettes derived from discourse already taken place. In content analysis it is often necessary to extract how often discourse explicitly refers back to historical accounts. In addition, there is significant power available to those who define sets of questioning. How does the power of summary (Drew and Heritage, 1992) play out in power systems ? What are the negotiated features of reality that enable those with power within the group to determine the content and outcomes of discourse proceedings ? The frequencies of calculative, cooperative, and coercive diplomatic styles in light of embedded repetition and power of summary will enable the proposed research project to thoroughly analyze the political psychological underpinnings of failed diplomacy efforts that facilitated rather then impeded the US invasion of Iraq, as Blix originally intended. Through this quantitative and qualitative content analysis using UN transcripts of official testimony, the proposed research project intends to demonstrate the unique diplomatic organizational psychology at play that wedged Blix between two disparate styles of international superpower diplomacy. If supported in the analysis, the analysis will demonstrate that middle road diplomacy efforts will likely be futile in the new era of international relations, and that negotiators in future international conflicts involving short-term action-oriented solutions will be compelled to demonstrate an orientation either toward cooperative or coercive styles of persuasion. It is only through the commitment to styles of diplomacy preferred by hegemonic superpowers that the diplomatic community will be in a position to mitigate or otherwise beneficially influence conflict affecting the socioeconomic interests of Europe or the United States. These obstacles to contemporary diplomacy may not necessarily be revolutionary in diffusing tense international interactions taking pace around the globe for the long-term, or be likely to change the entrenched styles of diplomacy preferred by hegemonic governments. But they might, nevertheless, prove highly effective in the short term by re-establishing desperately needed trust in diplomatic resolutions to world conflicts, as well as increasing the legitimacy of institutions engaged in mitigating the deleterious consequences of the volatile state of world affairs for the benefit of our increasingly precarious future. REFERENCES Drew, P. and Heritage, J. (Eds.). 1992. Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University. Druckman, D. (1996). Is There a U.S. Negotiating Style? International Negotiation Journal, 1(2), 1. Doran, C.F. (1997). Style as a Substitute for Issue Articulation in Canada-U.S. Relations American Review of Canadian Studies, 27, 1. Garrity, P.J. (1997). How To Think About Henry Kissinger On Principle: Journal of the Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs, 5(3):1 Handy, C. (1976). Understanding Organizations London, UK: Penguin. Hofstede, G. (2004). Diplomats as Cultural Bridge Builders Proceedings from the Second International Conference on Intercultural Communication and Diplomacy Khanna, P. (2004) All Style, No Substance. Foreign Policy, 145: 1. Lebow, R. N. (2007). Coercion, Cooperation and Ethics in International Relations NY: Routledge. Levy, J. (2008). Deterrence and Coercive Diplomacy: The Contributions of Alexander George. Political Psychology, 29(4), 537-552. Logevall, F. (2004). A Critique of Containment. Diplomatic History, 28 (4): p473-499. Montville, J.V. (1989). Psychoanalytic Enlightenment and the Greening of Diplomacy. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 37:297-318. Schenkein, J. (Ed.). (1978). Studies In The Organization Of Conversational Interaction. New York: Academic. Ungerer, C. (2007) The “Middle Power" Concept in Australian Foreign Policy Australian Journal of Politics and History 53(4): 538-551. United Nations Hanz Blix testimony [Electronic version] Retrieved November 30, 2008 from http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/blix14Febasdel.htm Read More