Could FedEx win the war?
The following originally appeared as a postscript to an entry, poorly articulated and subsequently pulled, that asked the now popular question: If the presidency were a U.S. corporation and the invasion of Iraq one of its products, how would it be judged and how would the occupation have fared under such circumstances?
postscript
With a tinge of shame, I remember the kind of pompous disdain this President Bush expressed for “nation-building,” during the debates against then vice president Gore in the summer of 2000.
The new conservative activists in the U.S. Crongress had gotten a lot of mileage over Kosovo and the like during the Clinton administration. So Bush sneered at the very notion of using the U.S. armed forces as a police force. What bloody arrogance.
And I quote:
The vice president and I have a disagreement about the use of troops. He believes in nation-building. I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders.– Governor George W. Bush
Very careful, indeed.
Do most Republicans really believe the lie that the choice in 2000 was between Bush and Gore and not between Governor Bush and Senator McCain?
Imagine, for a moment, how “President McCain” would have handled 9/11.
Arrogance incarnate [5/8/2004]
In “The Price of Arrogance,” Fareed Zakaria writes:
Since 9/11, a handful of officials at the top of the Defense Department and the vice president’s office have commandeered American foreign and defense policy. In the name of fighting terror they have systematically weakened the traditional restraints that have made this country respected around the world. Alliances, international institutions, norms and ethical conventions have all been deemed expensive indulgences at a time of crisis.
Leave process aside: the results are plain. On almost every issue involving postwar Iraq — troop strength, international support, the credibility of exiles, de-Baathification, handling Ayatollah Ali Sistani — Washington’s assumptions and policies have been wrong. By now most have been reversed, often too late to have much effect. This strange combination of arrogance and incompetence has not only destroyed the hopes for a new Iraq. It has had the much broader effect of turning the United States into an international outlaw in the eyes of much of the world.
Could FedEx American Express win the war? [8/20/2004]
The August 23, 2004 edition of Newsweek delivers Mr. Zakaria’s own answer:
Perhaps Iraq would have been a disaster no matter what. But there’s a thinly veiled racism behind such views, implying that Iraqis are savages genetically disposed to produce chaos and anarchy. In fact, other nation-building efforts over the past decade have gone reasonably well, when well planned and executed.
“Strategy is execution,” Louis Gerstner, former CEO of IBM, American Express and RJR Nabisco, has often remarked. In fact, it’s widely understood in the business world that having a good objective means nothing if you implement it badly. “Unless you translate big thoughts into concrete steps for action, they’re pointless,” writes Larry Bossidy, former CEO of Honeywell.
Bossidy has written a book titled “Execution,” which is worth reading in this context. Almost every requirement he lays out was ignored by the Bush administration in its occupation of Iraq. One important example: “You cannot have an execution culture without robust dialogue–one that brings reality to the surface through openness, candor, and informality,” Bossidy writes. “Robust dialogue starts when people go in with open minds. You cannot set realistic goals until you’ve debated the assumptions behind them.”
Say this in the business world and it is considered wisdom. But say it as a politician and it is derided as “nuance” or “sophistication.” Perhaps that’s why Washington works as poorly as it does.