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Drezner Misreading It?

Dan Drezner is falling into a trap, I think. One the Democrats have been falling into for some time, for a different reason.
He complains, in his recent Slate article [1]:

“A third criticism has slowly emerged over the past six months. It agrees with the logic of Bush’s grand strategy, but questions whether the policy implementation has been up to snuff. This line of argumentation has less to do with substance and more to do with process. To sum it up, Bush’s management of foreign policy has been too detached for his own good. “

He then proceeds to list a number of such instances.  One particularly easy target, for me was this one:

“The latest process screw-up was last week’s decision to bar allies outside the coalition of the willing in Iraq from receiving reconstruction contracts. The Defense Department memo in question was badly worded and badly timed. Claiming that the policy was “necessary for the protection of the essential security interests of the United States” made it seem like the administration trusted Egypt and Saudi Arabia more than Germany or Canada. Releasing the memo the day before Bush was to call the leaders of France, Germany, and Russia to discuss forgiving Iraq’s prewar debt was none too bright. White House officials admitted to the New York Times that they were “surprised by both the timing and the blunt wording” of the memo.”

To which I responded:

Dan;
I can certainly understand how you come to the conclusions you do in your article. However, I think you may be missing a subtle point or two.

For example, you point up the apparent stumble in sending out word that those who didn’t co-operate in the initial move against Iraq, wouldn’t profit on the clean up… Just as Baker was making his tour, trying to drum up support for forgiving Iraqi debt.

In case you’d not noticed, once all the smoke had blown off, and the screaming predictable screaming had died down, nations like France, and Germany, who are on the excrement list… and rightly so… were lining up to sign onto the debt restructuring plan.

This is quite unlike the run-up to our attack on Saddam, when it was fashionable to ‘rise up against America’… even among some of our own left.

And the announcement wasn’t withheld, or sprung on these idiots suddenly. The administration had told everyone involved that the contract ban against those not assiting would be in place, before during and after the war.

But notice that following that timed event, things smoothed out, to everyone’s amazement. Indeed, the change is such among such nations, now, where they’ve been playing along with us very nicely indeed, with none of the anti-American posturing of just a few months ago, and they’re in a figurative sense writing checks to support the reconstruction.

As a matter of logic, how can this be? By what information is coming our way, the full and happy involvement in such debt re-structuring that we’ve seen in the last few days would seem at least an unlikely if not impossible outcome of this event. Yet, we see what can only be described as wild success.

How? Based on what we know, it doesn’t make sense. Could it be that we don’t have all the information upon which to judge the matter? Could it be that what looked like a blunder was in fact, a policy masterstroke? The result, in that case, at least would seem to indicate so.

The Democrats at the moment are in serious electoral trouble. They are so not only because of their own misdeeds and a large mistrust of them following the Bill Clinton era, but also but a President they keep under-estimating, and about whom the leftist press invariably has been projecting the worst possible picture they can. Can it be you’ve fallen into the same trap? They certainly seem happy to have you on board, if I read DU correctly, for example.

And mind, this is merely one example of how Mr. Bush continues to out perform the naysayers. By no means am I suggesting he’s perfect. But is your read of the man and his actions what it is because you’re being misled? Are you ALLOWING yourself to be misled?