【外交政策 20140909】国家“不”安全

满仓

【中文标题】国家“不”安全
【原文标题】National Insecurity
【登载媒体】外交政策
【原文作者】DAVID ROTHKOPF
【原文链接】http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/09/09/national_insecurity_obama_foreign_policy?1


奥巴马可以挽救他的外交政策吗？



美国最可靠的一个中东盟友国家的一位高层外交官，在今年7月份对我说：“你们依然是世界上最强的超级势力，但是你们已经不知道该如何扮演好自己的角色。”

他所说的，是在巴拉克•奥巴马总统的第二任期即将过半时，美国在世界问题上的姿态。他能想到的是一系列的错误（前后不一的埃及政策、两极分化的叙利亚政策）、失误（军事干涉利比亚之后再无举措、与中东和其它地区的盟友逐渐疏远）、丑闻（监控美国公民、刺探盟友）、半途而废的计划（针对俄罗斯不痛不痒的制裁、中美洲国家边境危机的口舌之争）、无法兑现的诺言（开罗讲话、亚洲轴心），以及彻彻底底的政策失败（快进加快退的阿富汗策略和缺乏远见的伊拉克撤退计划）。

与我对话的这位外交家是个心思缜密的人，他非常了解这些问题并不是某一年里的无心之过所造成的，也不是某一任总统的过错。现实是，任何一位总统的外交政策成绩，在很大程度上取决于运气、外部因素、趋势和传承因素。的确，奥巴马所面临的很多挑战——有些完全在他的控制范围之外——都来自前任总统。

奥巴马能入主白宫，主要得益于历史上一个特殊的时刻，或许未来有一天我们会说这不是一个正常的时期——911之后的十年，震惊、愤怒、迷失方向的美国人集体陷入创伤后心里障碍症。在这个恐惧的年代中，整个国家和它的领导人不得不与那种他们早已陌生的无助感抗争。乔治•W•布什政府的反应——介入一场漫长的、昂贵的伊拉克和阿富汗战争，让美国的国家安全政策主要应对恐怖主义威胁——所带来的反作用把奥巴马送上总统的职位。显而易见，人们对他的期望是纠正前任的行为，不要再犯相同的错误。

问题在于，奥巴马在小心翼翼地绕过困扰布什的那些错误的同时，却不经意地犯下了自己的错误。但是，布什在错误连连的第一任期之后，在第二任期中做出了很多改变，尽管不那么完美，但相当重要。奥巴马似乎非常固执，拒绝从过去的错误中吸取教训，也不愿精心管理他的团队以避免未来的灾难。很难想象在近代会出现这样一位任期中没有任何成长的总统。

因此，美国背负着它那幼稚的自信和盲目的乐观情绪，比911之后的十年更加不稳定、更加脆弱。现存的那些问题变得更加危险了：相对影响力变弱；恐怖主义威胁日益增长；美国的盟友相继退居二线，躲藏在他们原先并不那么强大的身影之后。更糟糕的是，华盛顿似乎陷入一片混乱，首屈一指的事情是，国会本应在总统有机会采取愚蠢的行动之前进行阻止。

如果要完全恢复这个国家的活力，奥巴马必须要做的事情不仅包括认清并改变以前犯下的错误，还必须要搞清楚，在第二任期结束时怎样才能有所成就。也就是说，巨大的挑战还没有得到足够的重视。他必须要彻底审视自己——自己的态度、所传达出是信息、他的管理能力和他的团队。

他必须现在开始，投入额外的精力来解决那些让他的外交政策偏离正轨的问题。其中一个问题即使在那些总统的死忠分子看来也最为显著。

2012年8月20日，奥巴马与记者会面，讨论叙利亚的危机。当被问到对于当地的混乱状况和人员损耗持续上升持有什么看法时，总统用在叙利亚战争开始时就采取的一贯方式来回答。他的措辞强硬，同时小心翼翼地表明美国不会支持冲突的任何一方。但是在一次临时的表态中，他说如果叙利亚政府使用化学武器，他将采取行动。“我们对阿萨德政权和其它武装力量的态度非常明确，我们的红线是，一旦看到大规模的化学武器被使用，或者有被使用的迹象，我的政策会有变化。”

但是，尽管情报机构多次报告有突破红线的现象，白宫却在想方设法回避这个问题。直到一年之后的2013年8月21日，一次大规模的化学武器攻击导致大马士革郊区的古塔1429人丧生。

总统自己铺设的绊网被明目张胆地触发了。现在，他的公信力面临危机。

三天之后，奥巴马与国家安全团队会面，表明他倾向于对叙利亚实施打击的想法，同时命令有能力向叙利亚目标发动导弹进攻的海军舰队在地中海集结。计划的攻击规模并不大，而且是远距离进攻，几乎对美国及其盟友没有任何风险——除了名誉风险。即使如此，奥巴马也不想被认为这是单方行动，由于缺少与欧洲和世界其它国家领导人的亲密关系，他给有限几个能指望上的人之一打电话——英国首相大卫•卡梅伦，因为他曾经表示愿意提供军事行动支持。但是奥巴马、卡梅伦和他们的团队很快就发现，他们的行动太草率了。在很多下议院的议员看来，首相的举措让他们想到乔治•W•布什与托尼•布莱尔在伊拉克的悲惨遭遇，那次的伤疤还没有愈合。让白宫和首相办公室震惊的是，下议院拒绝了卡梅伦的军事行动提案。

这与美国国会对这项行动的怀疑态度不谋而合，怀疑大部分出于政治原因。共和党长久以来就把阻碍议案通过奉为削弱民主党总统的核心策略。奥巴马请他的顶级国家安全幕僚、国务卿约翰•克里、国防部长查克•哈格尔（两人均是前参议员）和国家安全顾问苏姗•莱斯去游说国会，谋得支持。（奥巴马与他的那些行事颇为有效的前任不同，他对于亲自与国会议员建立友好关系这件事没什么兴趣，无论是必要的妥协、威胁、电话问候，甚至动用白宫的力量。）比英国下议院投票结果更让人无法接受的是，共和党和民主党都没有看到支持总统的红线宣言有什么好处。

尽管风向不利，2013年8月30日，白宫似乎下定决心要执行有限打击的方案。克里被安排向公众发表一份激情四射的战书，详述采取行动的原因。海军将领预计在第二天将接到行动的命令。

但是在当天下午，总统与他的幕僚长丹尼斯•麦克多诺在白宫南草坪散步。麦克多诺在2008年竞选之前就是总统的老牌忠实追随者，他不仅是幕僚长，还是总统最隐秘的核心小团体成员之一，和前国家安全顾问。麦克多诺一直主张美国不要干涉叙利亚，当总统面临来自其他人的压力时，比如前国务卿希拉里•克林顿——她认为华盛顿应当更多地支持叙利亚总统巴沙尔•阿萨德的温和反对派，他经常帮助司令官强化置身事外的决心。在45分钟的散步过程中，奥巴马向麦克多诺叙说了他对于坚持叙利亚计划的担心。

之后，两个人邀请几位顶级顾问在椭圆形办公室开会。据说，奥巴马宣布：“我有了一个重大的决定，和你们说说。”然后他说，他打算暂停打击计划，直到得到国会的正式支持。参与讨论的很多人听到这个消息之后非常震惊，包括莱斯，她认为这种摇摆不定的态度会建立一个屈从国会的坏榜样。

值得一提的是，这次会议并没有邀请主要的国家安全官员参加。奥巴马事后给哈格尔打电话告知他的决定。缺席的还有克里，奥巴马后来私下告诉他改了主意。国务卿团队感觉克里得到的待遇不公，仅仅几个小时之前，他还是被当成主战派的先锋官。

奥巴马的一位前高级顾问对我说：“这就是这届政府的外交政策的转折点，从那开始，一切急转直下。”

叙利亚在两年多的煎熬中，不止一次请求美国出手，并向地区盟国请求帮助。媒体蓄势待发，很多批评人士猛烈抨击总统的优柔寡断。尽管总统果敢的一次行动绝杀奥萨马•本•拉登，但这次的肾上腺激素持续了不到一个晚上。

明显的一个事实是，从一开始国会就不可能批准总统的提案。他把议案提交给国会，实际上就是在等着被拒绝，好像是在说：“快来阻止我冒这个自己也不大愿意的险吧。”而且还给出了一个先例，似乎是总统在采取军事行动之前必须要得到国会的批准，而《战争权力决议案》明白无误地说根本不需要这么做。

幸运的是，奥巴马很快得到了一个机会。这要感谢俄罗斯的提议和克里的迅速反应，美国可以和叙利亚人进行一次可以放弃化学武器的谈判。这只不过是一个遮羞布。它虽然消除了中东人民面临的威胁，但这项协议带来了意想不到的后果。它让阿萨德政府看起来更加有存在的理由，放弃化学武器的前提条件是他要在位。叙利亚总统所承受的压力小了，美国有了更好的借口继续支持叙利亚温和的反对派。

一年之后，全世界人民看到了最糟糕的情况，简直是一波未平一波又起。据奥巴马自己的高层情报顾问、退役的陆军上尉詹姆斯•克莱珀说，阿萨德变得更加强大，而且阿萨德最危险、最激进的反对派——现在被称为“伊斯兰国”——也在逐渐壮大。一个新兴的极端主义国家即将横跨叙利亚和伊拉克的边境。

叙利亚危机的紧张局势，及其累加效应本身就代表了美国的做法和运作团队的失误。例如，俄罗斯圣彼得堡的G-20峰会在2013年9月5日和6日召开。峰会前夕，华盛顿依然在敦促国际社会支持它自从去年8月底就开始的那些无效的军事行动。在一次会议上，莱斯毫不客气地催促德国代表在欧盟内部承担起领导责任。德国不慌不忙地与欧盟成员国磋商这件事，这让莱斯极为沮丧，以至于她急火攻心，据说她的一番充满污言秽语的咆哮在外交场合绝少出现，其中竟然有“motherfucker”这样的话。德国的一位安全顾问克里斯多夫•赫尔斯根非常愤怒，他对一位美国朋友说，这是他职业生涯中参加的最糟糕的一次会议。

（莱斯的鲁莽和坏脾气在她的整个职业生涯中都削弱了自己的影响力。2014年7月《新共和》报道，她有一次在椭圆形办公室外面冲撞巴勒斯坦总统马哈茂德•阿巴斯，说：“你们这帮巴勒斯坦人看问题的角度就是他妈的不能更高一点。”一个大国驻联合国的大使对我说，他不明白“她用这种街头混混的方式讲话有什么好处”。鲁莽的态度也让她与政府内部和自己员工的人际关系一塌糊涂。对于一个在朋友圈中以和蔼、幽默、积极态度闻名的人来说，这的确是个致命要害。）

与德国交恶的时机实在太糟糕了。几个星期之后，华盛顿窃听德国领导人的事件被曝光，更让双方的关系雪上加霜。在德国总理安吉拉•默克尔就这个问题第一次致电奥巴马之前，德国安全顾问给莱斯打了一个电话，莱斯的态度比以往更加恶劣。她给出的说辞似乎证明奥巴马要么无能，要么是个骗子——她对德国人说，总统不知道有关窃听的事情。

莱斯与德国人之间的关系在2014年夏天下降到冰点，以至于当华盛顿试图修复由于窃听事件所引起的双方关系裂痕时，人们明显地预见到，如果让莱斯率领美国代表团访问德国，只会适得其反。于是，麦克多诺率领代表团与赫尔斯根等人会面——对于一位幕僚长来说，这不是一项常见的任务。（毋庸讳言，鉴于德国在北约举足轻重的地位，厌恶感在乌克兰危机期间没有任何帮助。）

麦克多诺的德国之行，让人们对于本来已经模糊不清的白宫国家安全流程和原则更加心生疑窦。作为国家安全顾问，莱斯俨然以国务卿自居，这种不加掩饰的姿态让她在国务院内部招致愤恨。而现在，奥巴马的幕僚长代表总统完成了德国任务，这本应是国务院（或者暗地里由国家安全顾问）做的事情。而且，这项工作的处理方式发出了一个信号，似乎麦克多诺变成了二号国家安全顾问，或者说，他承担了比所有前任更重大的国家安全责任。（麦克多诺的一位副手克里斯蒂•肯加罗，像她的老板一样，也有国家安全顾问经验。她的职责明确包括掌管与阿富汗战争有关的事务。）

这种越职行为的出现，导致一位前民主党政府的国家安全顾问说：“如果换作是我，我早就辞职了。”



奥巴马的白宫，弱点一直在于管理方式和组织架构层面。问题的根源在于一个事实，即奥巴马与过去六任总统中的五任相比，当选之前的外交政策经验最少。而且，奥巴马是唯一缺少高层管理经验的总统。吉米•卡特、罗纳德•里根、比尔•克林顿和乔治•W•布什都曾经担任过州长。他在华盛顿只有4年的就职经验，他的个性——据一位政府高层官员说——“更像一个律师，而不是一个CEO”。

因此，奥巴马考虑问题一直采取过分小心谨慎的态度，而且总是不遗余力地寻求中间立场。他从来不愿意与大部分内阁成员建立友好的关系，也不愿给那些重要的机构负责人授权。而这一点对于美国政府这样的一个全世界最大的、无比复杂的行政机构来说，是至关重要的。

让管理问题雪上加霜的是，总统自己的行为也在削弱他的系统。在国家安全委员会和其它类似的会议上，据说他总是向房间里所有的人征求意见。（这经常会把职位较低的助手们置于否定他们顶头上司的观点的尴尬境地。）通常情况下，会议结束的时候总统还没有决定。他往往在后来拿出一些结论，那是与几个最亲密的白宫助手，通常在每天早晨碰面谈论最新情报时，所商量出来的。这样的程序完全不透明，而且让他的小圈子权力过大。

我们本来希望，总统在他的第二任期里或许可以做出一些改变。但是就目前情况来看，问题只是变得更糟了。在外交政策层面盖上，这意味着那些“忠实的信众”——比如第一任期中的麦克多诺、莱斯、副国家安全顾问本•罗德斯和联合国大使萨曼莎•鲍尔——扶摇直上、只手遮天，总是能得到奥巴马的核心政治顾问们的支持。而那些与他们观点相左的人——比如希拉里•克林顿、前中央情报局局长莱昂•帕内塔和前国防部长罗伯特•盖茨——则淡出人们的视线。

克里和哈格尔个性坚强，与总统关系也不错，但是他们并没有机会直接参与椭圆形办公室里的决策过程。他们不是那些在奥巴马一整天的时间里随时有机会与他进行私下讨论、听取最新情报的汇报和其它互动的人，而且国家安全委员会的会议方式也并未有效地纠正这种偏差。更重要的是，克里和哈格尔的大部分工作时间都不在白宫，而是花费在管理自己的部门和飞机上。

亨利•基辛格曾经对我说，美国政府与房地产的共同之处是三个关键因素“位置、位置、位置”。这一届政府更是如此，只要你的办公室不是位于宾夕法尼亚大街1600号，无论你的职位多高，都算不上核心决策层。

奥巴马的愿景在逐渐萎缩，而且总统似乎对于周围的批评声音烦躁不已，他那著名的超然姿态中，现在掺杂了一些防御情绪。最明显的例子出现在2014年4月他访问亚洲期间，这次出访的主要目的是与地区领导人沟通，美国没有放弃它的全球领导责任。在菲律宾，奥巴马丝毫没有掩饰愤怒的情绪，他说美国的外交政策方向依然是努力需求折衷的解决方案：“一垒安打，二垒安打。（译者注：接下来的话是‘偶尔就会击出本垒打’。）”——这与他在《无畏的希望》年代，以及入主白宫第一年“要改变世界”的宣言相距甚远。

讲话结束之后，他继续给登上空军一号的记者团训话。在第二次袒露心声的谈话中，奥巴马试图彻底阐明他对国际问题的一贯准则，用他自己的话来说“别做蠢事”。（可惜这句话的含义引发了完全负面的反应，包括来自希拉里•克林顿的批评，说这样的话本身就是一件蠢事。）尽管各方的批评降低了公众的期望值，但它依然引发了不满，并且证明了怀疑者的看法，即这一届政府满足于对国际事务袖手旁观的态度，置盟友的呼救声而不顾。正如一位中东国家领导人所说，美国“不是运动员，只是一个教练”。

奥巴马政府与以往各届政府相比，选择采取一种精心规划的方式，把更多的权力集中到白宫。尽管国家安全委员会在1947年成立之后一直在发展壮大，在奥巴马当政时期，其雇员数量达到370人，大约是70年代的10倍，是布什政府时期的两倍。（发展的部分原因是它兼并了布什政府的国土安全委员会。）更重要的是，白宫雇员从一开始就接手了一系列重要的工作，以至于驻扎在华盛顿的那些外国大使通常会绕过国务院，直接与白宫西厢或者与艾森豪威尔行政办公楼中的国家安全委员会对话。

但即使是那些牛气冲天的国家安全委员会成员，也无法取代那些经常遭到自己排挤的内阁机构。每当它尝试去做一些事情（比如莱斯带领代表团监控阿富汗政府的权力交接，以及与以色列总理本杰明•内塔尼亚胡磋商），他都在向世人证明自己并没有能力完成本职工作——也就是协调、发展、执行外交政策和为总统提供建议的能力。

这是一个代价昂贵的做法。把权力全部集中在白宫，更可能形成“多言堂”的局面，尤其是在总统的第二任期，政府中很多持强硬和多元化观点的人已经离开，而又没有同样强硬和多元化的人补充进来时。多言堂，再加上一个小心谨慎、律师出身的领导人，和他那些曾经参与过竞选的亲密助手们，导致了解决问题过程中过分优柔寡断的现象。如果说这一届政府中存在着某些巨大的政策空白，那么必然是在战略方面。

白宫所采纳的中间路线无疑与奥巴马的性格有关——他的确很有魅力，有时候也显得有些自我、有些忧心忡忡，也与他管理参议员的小团队经历有关。但是，奥巴马的前国家安全顾问汤姆•多尼伦说，他有时候考虑问题过于谨慎了。多尼伦指出，如果一个人想动用政府所有的力量，就必须要摆脱国家安全委员会。外国元首希望了解总统的立场，尤其是针对与他切身相关的那些事情。

尽管这其中存在着逻辑的必然性，但近代史似乎证明鲁莽是要不得的。

或许我们可以轻松得出一个结论，说这位总统已经不可救药了。但事实并非如此。实际上，一些可以让总统的国家安全政策重振雄风的方案，就来自于白宫——更不用说公众们——认为不大可能的地方：乔治•W•布什政府。

应当承认，布什组建了一届优秀的政府这种说法，与普通人的观点大相径庭。这位总统在人们心目中的形象主要体现在911之后的行动、入侵伊拉克所犯下的错误、关塔那摩和阿布格莱布监狱中的虐囚事件，以及与世界重要盟友逐渐疏远等方面。但是在他的第二任期里，布什和他的团队塑造了一个不同的、容易被人低估的形象。在国家安全和外交政策方面，这其中包括了稳定伊拉克局势；采取“轻足迹”方案对抗恐怖主义——后来被奥巴马沿用至今（包括使用无人机和特种部队）；提升美国的网络战斗力和防御力；促进非洲的“千年挑战集团”工作，以及总统防治艾滋病紧急救援计划。还有与印度达成重要的核设施协议；加强与巴西和欧洲的盟友关系；安抚阿拉伯国家等等。更重要的是，布什应对经济危机的方式称得上勇敢果断，美国经济之所以能比其它国家——比如欧盟——更加迅速地复苏，布什做出了巨大的贡献。

布什在第二任期里的转型有几个重要的原因，其中之一是任职的经验。但是，布什和他的团队不仅有能力更快地成长，他们还能更快地适应周围的世界。

911事件让人措手不及。这或许是美国历史上第一次，一场战争不是以某个演讲、某个报纸标题为开端，而是以一个真切的、恐怖的、难以忘记的、几乎所有美国人都眼睁睁地看到的场景为开端。五脏翻腾和精神失常不足以描述这种感觉，但它让美国人发现，世界上出现了这个国家从未准备应对的新危险。前国务卿康多莉扎•赖斯在结束了雾谷的任职之后，在斯坦福大学的办公室里对我说：“911之后，我们一直在忙于应对。直到一段时间之后我们才停下来，喘一口气，仔细回顾我们都做了些什么。”

接下来是大反省，其中包括赖斯和斯蒂芬•哈德利。后者在布什的第一任期里是她的副国家安全顾问，赖斯进入国务院之后，他晋升为国家安全顾问。哈德利和华盛顿的其他人一样，对国家安全委员会有非常深入的了解。他和团队思想转变的标志，就是希望回到核心假设上来。离开白宫之后，哈德利对我说：“回想起来，我想我们的错误是否在于没有思考萨达姆•侯赛因为什么对他的大规模杀伤性武器守口如瓶。他究竟是持有这些武器并把它藏起来，还是根本没有这些东西，但不想让人知道？”

“不想让伊朗人知道，也不想让我们知道。”他假设。

在经历了美国外交政策中艰难的学习曲线和挑战期之后，布什意识到，他的团队需要改变，无论是小调整还是大变化。赖斯进入雾谷之后，国务卿与国家安全顾问之间的紧张关系——布什第一任期里赖斯与柯林•鲍威尔之间的那种关系——立即得到了改善。

赖斯说：“毫无疑问，带着国家安全顾问的就职经历和应对过一些问题的经验进入国务院，是一个优势。而且，国家安全委员会中的斯蒂芬•哈德利也给予了很多帮助。与我相比，他是个更优秀的国家安全顾问，因为他的性格与工作更加温和。我觉得自己更适合做国务卿。我总是笑着说：‘我们终于找对了自己的位置。’”

赖斯知道还有一个因素会对国家安全团队产生重大的影响——布什。他已经不是一个新总统了，用赖斯的话来说：“总统成长了。”

她所看到的迹象主要是他新获取的那种笼络国防部的能力。他会“命令五角大楼做事。他相当自信地表达自己的雄心壮志，与唯唯诺诺请求军方对伊拉克动武时判若两人。”当布什对伊拉克采取强硬政策时，他在某种程度上逐渐削弱了他的副总统迪克•切尼的影响力。（布什的一位国家安全委员会官员说切尼总是在“惹是生非”。）赖斯说，在目前这个时刻，布什不想对朝鲜和伊朗动武，“他希望采取外交方式，总统的立场改变了。”

赖斯明显更加拥护前总统，而且很多依然在奥巴马政府中供职的前高官也和她有同样的看法。前一届政府的行为也在迎合这样的态度。除了伊拉克战争，布什的第二任期里再没出现任何新的大规模武装冲突。即使在面对阿富汗局势恶化和2008年俄罗斯入侵格鲁吉亚这样的挑衅时，布什总是在通过外交途径给予回应，或者顶多是有限的、秘密的军事行动。这种既成事实的轻手轻脚的策略被奥巴马继承下来，在批评人士眼中，他继承得有些过分了。

布什还加强了团队的力量。他请来了一位新的白宫幕僚长乔书亚•博尔腾，这个人帮助总统找来一位新的财政部长亨利•保尔森。保尔森在对中国的外交政策上扮演了关键的角色（他还在后来的经济危机中起到了至关重要的领导作用）。博尔腾是一位管理大师，擅于变通使用公司层面的管理手段，而且甘居幕后，用强硬而又敏感的方法运作一切。无法无天、自我膨胀、虽然有创造力但总会把事情搞砸的国防部长唐纳德•拉姆斯菲尔德在2006年离职，取代他的是罗伯特•盖茨，他是美国近三十年历史中出现的最受人尊敬的国防专业公务员。尽管切尼依然有一定的影响力，但布什逐渐直接插手更多的细节问题。他的新团队更专注于遵循正规的国家安全程序，而不是像布什第一任期中的切尼和拉姆斯菲尔德那些人一样喜欢走后门。

哈德利在国家安全委员会内部和周边的数十年工作经验，让他对于自己的国家安全顾问角色有格外清晰的认识。他观察到，机构之间的互动有两种方式。国内事务“主要由白宫人员关注”，幕僚们会直接与总统沟通，之后制定政策方案。一旦某项政策“大方向已经确定”，内阁部长们就会介入并执行。

国家安全问题的决策过程与此完全不同，这个过程更加“注重原则问题，参与人员包括国家安全顾问、国务卿、国防部长、参谋长联席会议主席和情报部人员。然后我们一起把方案呈交给总统。”（哈德利还说，在他看来，奥巴马总统经常把白宫人员决定国内政策的方法使用在国家安全和外交政策问题上。）

布什显然在关键问题上改变了立场。他不但表现出改变的勇气（当然，给阿富汗增兵算是个不受欢迎的决定），而且他表现出愿意亲力亲为地做一些东西出来。从某种程度上说，这意味着他卷起袖子去做一位经理的事情。例如，他每周与驻伊拉克的部队进行视频会议，还定期与伊拉克总理努里•马利基会谈。

幡然醒悟所带来的收益让全世界了解到，增兵以及全力关注所造成的稳定局面不会持续太久，因为马利基是个狡猾、危险的角色。但同样显而易见的是，在布什任职的过去两年里，伊拉克或许是达到了入侵后最繁荣稳定的状态。值得一提的是，当被问到奥巴马是否会继续与马利基保持定期的沟通，他的一位副手说，总统不大愿意插手管理这些细节问题。

布什把自己当作团队的教练，有责任去领导，去与内阁成员们建立友好的个人关系。当面临困难的时候，他会在内阁会议和面对面沟通中扮演一个鼓舞士气的角色。一位曾经在布什和奥巴马政府中任职的前政府高官提到，有一次布什把手搭在一位饱受金融危机折磨的内阁成员的肩膀上，试图“把他从悬崖边拉回来”。这位无党派、经验丰富的政客说：“如果人们像我一样看到了这20分钟里发生的事情，他们会觉得把国家交给布什这样的总统打理是明智的。”

至于奥巴马，可以通过研究布什如何重塑团队、自身角色和外交政策而大有收获，尽管无法完全纠正第一任期中所犯下的错误，但可以让美国的利益得到最大伸张。解决问题的办法并不复杂，只需要一个有效的流程、一个优秀的团队、一位投入的总统和承认错误、改正错误的愿望。他需要确信，管理很重要，这届政府剩下的几年任期仍然大有可为。

坦率地说，奥巴马表现出有能力做出些许的改变。在他的第一任期里，经历过战战兢兢的开始之后，奥巴马任命多尼伦为国家安全顾问，任命麦克多诺为他的副手，这让国家安全委员会的议事流程得到了改善。新的团队尊重流程和纪律，并且甘居幕后扮演重要角色，让总统可以有效地应对各式各样、态度强硬的国家安全部门负责人。在关键问题上，比如袭击本•拉登行动和类似的数十个精明决策，总统扮演了强有力的领导角色，表现出独特的性格特点和勇气。最近，在国家安全局监听丑闻等问题上，奥巴马开始承认政府内部的一些错误。

延续这些成功的经验，并重新评估美国的需求还为时不晚。美国人希望，他在近期逐渐减少对伊拉克干涉的政策反转，或许是他新意愿的一个迹象。但挑战依然存在：团队人员的组成、政府的组织架构、他回避风险和防御心态、过分讲求策略和短视的行事方式、不能从战略角度考虑问题，以及总统似乎不愿意亲力亲为地与全球领导人共事，并在重大问题上扮演领导角色的顾虑。

简而言之，奥巴马需要充分借鉴前任的经验。至于该从哪里开始着手，一个老笑话给出了清楚明白的建议：换一只灯泡需要几个精神治疗医生？只需要一个，但是灯泡自己要愿意被换掉。



原文：

"YOU'RE STILL A SUPERPOWER," a top diplomat from one of America's most dependable Middle Eastern allies said to me in July of this year, "but you no longer know how to act like one."

He was reflecting on America's position in the world almost halfway into President Barack Obama's second term. Fresh in his mind was the extraordinary string of errors (schizophrenic Egypt policy, bipolar Syria policy), missteps (zero Libya post-intervention strategy, alienation of allies in the Middle East and elsewhere), scandals (spying on Americans, spying on friends), halfway measures (pinprick sanctions against Russia, lecture series to Central Americans on the border crisis), unfulfilled promises (Cairo speech, pivot to Asia), and outright policy failures (the double-down then get-out approach in Afghanistan, the shortsighted Iraq exit strategy).

The diplomat with whom I was speaking is a thoughtful man. He knew well that not all of these problems are the result of the blunders of a single really bad year or the fault of any one president. The reality is that any president's foreign policy record depends heavily on luck, external factors, cyclical trends, and legacy issues. And, to be sure, Obama inherited many of his greatest challenges, some of the biggest beyond his control.

Obama's presidency is largely a product of a moment in history that likely will be seen someday as an aberration -- the decade after 9/11, during which a stunned, angry, and disoriented America was sent spinning into a kind of national PTSD. Call it an age of fear, one in which the country and its leaders were forced to grapple with a sense of vulnerability to which they were unaccustomed. The response of George W. Bush's administration -- entering into the long, costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, remaking U.S. national security policy around the terrorism threat -- led to a backlash that ushered Obama into office with a perceived mandate to undo what his predecessor had done and avoid making similar mistakes.

The problem is that in seeking to sidestep the pitfalls that plagued Bush, Obama has inadvertently created his own. Yet unlike Bush, whose flaw-riddled first-term foreign policy was followed by important and not fully appreciated second-term course corrections, Obama seems steadfast in his resistance both to learning from his past errors and to managing his team so that future errors are prevented. It is hard to think of a recent president who has grown so little in office.

As a result, for all its native confidence and fundamental optimism, the United States remains shaken and unsteady more than a decade after the 9/11 attacks. Many of its problems have only grown dangerously worse: Its relative influence has declined; the terrorism threat has evolved and spread; and U.S. alliances are superannuated, ineffective shadows of their former selves. Compounding this is such gross dysfunction in Washington that, on most issues, the president is presumed to be blocked by Congress even before he has had the opportunity to make a move.

If the nation is to recover fully, Obama must not only identify and attempt to reverse what has gone wrong, but he also must try to understand how he can achieve new gains by the end of his second term. That is to say that huge challenges remain unaddressed and rising to them requires a hard look at himself -- his responses, his messages, his management, and his team.

He must start by devoting special attention to the instances that knocked his foreign policy off the rails. And one stands out, even in the minds of some of the president's most prominent loyalists.

ON AUG. 20, 2012, Obama met with reporters to discuss the crisis in Syria. When pressed to respond to the growing chaos and human toll there, the president replied as he had since the onset of Syria's war: He blended tough rhetoric with assiduous avoidance of risky American commitment to helping any of the parties to the conflict. But in an uNSCripted moment, he suggested that he would take action against the Syrian regime if it used chemical weapons, saying, "We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus."

Despite intelligence reports of multiple violations of that red line, the White House managed to ignore or sidestep the issue -- that is, until exactly one year later, when, on Aug. 21, 2013, a major chemical-weapons attack claimed the lives of an estimated 1,429 people in Ghouta, a Damascus suburb.

The tripwire strung by the president himself had been clearly and unmistakably tripped. Now, his credibility was at stake.

Three days later, Obama met with his national security team and indicated that he was inclined to strike Syria, ordering naval vessels, with the capacity to deliver cruise missiles against Syrian targets, into position in the Mediterranean Sea. The planned attack would be small, be delivered from afar, and pose essentially no risk -- beyond the reputational -- to the United States or its allies. Even so, Obama did not want to be seen as acting alone. Lacking many close relationships with European or other world leaders, he called one of the few he thought he could count on: British Prime Minister David Cameron, who suggested he was ready to help with military action. The two moved rapidly in seeking a quick response from the British Parliament. But Obama, Cameron, and their teams would soon discover that they had moved too quickly and had badly miscalculated. To many members of Parliament, the leaders' one-two punch evoked the George W. Bush-Tony Blair misadventure in Iraq. The scars hadn't quite healed from that experience. Shockingly, to the White House and to the prime minister's office, Parliament rejected Cameron's call to arms.

This coincided with the U.S. Congress's growing doubts about the action. Some, perhaps most, of this was politics. The Republican Party had long before embraced obstructionism as a principle strategy in its efforts to damage the Democratic president. Obama asked his top national security advisors, Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel -- both former senators -- and National Security Advisor Susan Rice to help persuade Congress to offer support. (Unlike some of his more effective predecessors, Obama had little appetite to work to personally build congressional backing, whether by horse-trading, intimidation, working the phones, or otherwise harnessing the power of the bully pulpit.) More skeptical than ever after the British vote, however, neither the Republicans nor the Democrats could see the wisdom of supporting the president's red-line statement.

Despite these headwinds, by the afternoon of Aug. 30, 2013, the White House appeared set to follow through on the limited-attack option. Kerry was sent out to deliver an impassioned set of casus belli remarks to the public, laying out the rationale for action, and commanders expected to receive their orders the next day.

But later that afternoon, the president went on a walk around the South Lawn of the White House with his chief of staff, Denis McDonough, a longtime loyalist whose relationship with the president dates back to just prior to the 2008 campaign. McDonough was not just a chief of staff -- he was a member of the president's tightly knit innermost circle and a former deputy national security advisor. McDonough had also long been one of the voices urging that America not get involved in Syria, often stiffening the commander in chief's resolve to keep out of the crisis when pressure came from others, such as first-term Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who thought Washington ought to do more to support moderate opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It was during their 45-minute stroll that Obama shared with McDonough his concerns about following through on his Syria plan.

Afterward, when the two joined a small group of top advisors in the Oval Office, Obama reportedly announced, "I have a big idea I want to run by you guys," and then segued into his new plan to put action on hold until he could get a formal vote of congressional support. Many in the group were stunned by the news, including Rice, who reportedly argued that it would send a message of vacillation and would set a bad precedent of deferring to Congress on such issues.

Notably, the group did not include several key national security principals. Obama called Hagel to let him know about the decision to punt. Absent as well was Kerry, whom Obama later privately informed about his change of mind. The secretary of state's team felt he had been treated badly, having been asked to play the role of frontman on this issue just hours before.

"This was the real turning point for the administration's foreign policy," a former senior Obama advisor told me. "This was when things really started to go bad."

With Syria festering for more than two years amid pleas to the United States for leadership and support from longtime regional allies, the media was primed to respond, and many critics immediately assailed the president for being indecisive. It was a charge that, despite the president's tough decisions on issues such as launching the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, had not bubbled up overnight.

It was clear from the outset that Congress would never approve the president's request and that, in asking for it, he was effectively seeking to be denied -- as if to say, "Stop me before I take a risk I really don't want to take." It also set a precedent that would seemingly require the president to seek congressional approval for future military actions, even though the War Powers Resolution explicitly notes that he does not require it.

Fortunately for Obama, an opportunity soon arose -- thanks to a proposal from the Russians and some swift action by Kerry -- to negotiate a deal in which the Syrians would agree to give up their chemical weapons. This was more than a fig leaf. It eliminated a serious threat to the Middle East. However, the embrace of that deal led to further unintended consequences: It made Assad look more reasonable and required him to be in place in order to get rid of the weapons. This only pressured the Syrian president less, while providing an excuse for continued U.S. inaction in support of Syria's moderate opposition.

A year later, the world is witnessing the Hydra-headed worst-case scenario in which Assad is stronger, according to Obama's own top intelligence advisor, retired Lt. Gen. James Clapper, and Assad's most dangerous radicalized opponents, now called the Islamic State, have also gained considerable ground. The group has not only seized much of Syria, but it also has spread its mayhem into Iraq, raising the prospect of the emergence of a new extremist state straddling what was once the Syria-Iraq border.

THE TENSIONS around the Syria crisis had other knock-on costs that were themselves symptomatic of a misfiring process and team. For example, on the edges of the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, which took place Sept. 5 and 6, 2013, Washington continued to push for international support of military action as it had been doing ineffectively since late August. In one meeting, Rice pressed the German delegation relentlessly for leadership within the European Union. The Germans sought more time and consultation with other EU member states, frustrating Rice to the point that she lost her cool and reportedly launched into a profanity-filled lecture that featured a rare diplomatic appearance of the word "motherfucker." Germany's national security advisor, Christoph Heusgen, was so angered that he told an American confidante it was the worst meeting of his professional life.

(Rice's bluntness and hot temper have undercut her effectiveness throughout her career. In July 2014, the New Republic reported that she once confronted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas outside the Oval Office, saying, "You Palestinians can never see the fucking big picture." A U.N. ambassador of one of the world's major powers told me that he didn't "understand what she thinks she is achieving by talking to us like a longshoreman." The brusqueness hasn't helped with her interpersonal relationships within the administration or with her staff, either. It is a particularly frustrating Achilles' heel for someone who is well known among her friends as having the capacity to be very warm, humorous, and engaging.)

The timing of the dust-up with Germany was particularly bad. Within a few weeks, revelations that Washington had been spying on the German leadership added a further chill to the relationship. When Rice's counterpart called her prior to German Chancellor Angela Merkel's first call with Obama on the issue, Rice compounded her past action with something even worse: She offered a defense that suggested Obama was either incompetent or a liar. That is, she told the Germans that the president did not know about the spying.

Rice's relationship with the Germans had deteriorated so significantly by the summer of 2014 that when Washington sought to repair the bilateral strain over surveillance issues, it was apparent to those who knew the history that it might be counterproductive to have Rice head the U.S. delegation visiting Germany to patch things up. Instead, McDonough -- in a rare diplomatic mission for a chief of staff -- led the team that met with Heusgen and others. (Needless to say, given Germany's centrality to the Atlantic alliance, bad blood hasn't helped during the Ukraine crisis, either.)

McDonough's trip framed still other questions about the sometimes-blurry structure and discipline of the White House's national security process. As national security advisor, Rice had already begun to breed resentment at the State Department for playing a high-profile role usually reserved for the secretary of state. Now, with the Germany mission, Obama's chief of staff had undertaken, on the president's behalf, a function that traditionally would have been handled by the State Department (or quietly by the national security advisor). What's more, the structure of the mission sent the message that McDonough might become something like a second national security advisor -- or, at least, that he might assume somewhat greater national security responsibilities than many of his predecessors had. (Kristie Canegallo -- one of McDonough's deputies, who, like her boss, also has National Security Council experience -- has as one of her stated duties oversight of issues associated with the war in Afghanistan.)

This crossing of lines led one former national security advisor from a Democratic administration to tell me, "If it had been me and they tried to do that, I would have quit."

A WEAK POINT of the Obama White House has always been management style and structure. The problem begins with the fact that, as with five of the past six U.S. presidents, Obama had very little foreign policy experience before he was elected. But of those five, Obama was unique in that he lacked any executive-management experience of any sort: Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush had all been governors. Furthermore, he had only four years of Washington experience and a personality that was "much more that of the lawyer than the CEO," according to a senior administration official.

As a result, Obama has been deliberative to a fault and an inveterate seeker of the middle ground. He also has not been inclined to develop strong bonds with most of his cabinet members or to empower them or agency heads, which is essential in a sprawling U.S. government that is the world's largest and most complex organization.

Compounding the management problem was the president's own undermining of his system. During National Security Council (NSC) and other staff meetings, for example, he was known for going around the room and asking for everyone's views (often putting subordinate aides in the awkward position of undercutting or deviating from the views of their bosses). Typically, such meetings would end without the president making a decision. He would later reveal whatever conclusion to which he had come to a handful of close White House aides, often the small group with which he met each morning to review the latest intelligence. This took transparency out of the process and overly empowered his inner circle.

The hope was that, in his second term, the president might address some of these issues. But by all reports, the situation has gotten worse. On the foreign policy side, this has meant that "the true believers" -- as one first-termer called McDonough, Rice, Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, and U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power, among others -- have moved up and gained power, periodically being supported by Obama's closest political advisors. Many of the people who often offset their views -- such as Hillary Clinton, former CIA Director Leon Panetta, and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates -- have moved on.

Kerry and Hagel are strong personalities with good ties to the president, but they don't have the ready access of those who work just down the hall from the Oval Office. They aren't the ones who interact with the president in the side conversations, morning intelligence briefings, and other exchanges that occur through Obama's day -- and the NSC process has simply not been effective in offsetting that disparity of influence. Moreover, Kerry and Hagel are largely consumed with agendas that keep them away from the White House and primarily within the orbit of their agencies or on airplanes.

Henry Kissinger once told me that in the U.S. government, as in real estate, the same three things matter: "Location, location, and location." This is truer than ever in this administration, where if your office is not in the complex at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, regardless of your title, you are often out of the loop.

As Obama's bubble has gotten smaller, the president has reportedly become frustrated with criticism too, compounding his famous aloofness with a more defensive attitude. The most notable example of this unfolded during his Asia visit in April 2014 -- a trip made largely with the intent of communicating to regional leaders that the United States was not abandoning its international leadership role. In the Philippines, Obama described, with barely concealed anger, his approach to foreign policy as one of seeking modest outcomes: "You hit singles; you hit doubles," he said -- a far cry from his "audacity of hope" days and his speeches about transforming the world that marked his first year in office.

Immediately after this speech, he continued his explanation when he lectured the press corps aboard Air Force One. It was during this second unburdening that Obama sought to drive home the point that his mantra on international issues was, in his own words, "Don't do stupid shit." (An infelicitous turn of phrase, it has since engendered such a negative reaction, including criticism from Hillary Clinton, that it has itself become a prime example of doing stupid shit.) While the comment certainly had the effect of lowering expectations, it was also seen as a fit of pique and as further proof to the skeptical that this administration is content to sit on the world's sidelines -- despite allies asking, as one Middle Eastern leader put it, that the United States be "not a player, just a coach."

MORE THAN AT ANY TIME IN THE PAST, Obama's administration has chosen, in a very deliberate way, to concentrate more power within the White House. Although the NSC has continuously increased in power since it was formed in 1947, under Obama its staff has grown to around 370 people, roughly 10 times the size it was during the 1970s and almost twice as large as it was during the early Bush years. (It grew in part because it absorbed Bush's Homeland Security Council.) More importantly, the White House staff has taken the lead on key issues from the outset, so much so that many D.C.-based ambassadors now habitually bypass the State Department in order to speak to those in the West Wing or in the NSC offices in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

But even the bloated NSC staff is not big enough to replace the cabinet agencies it often edges out of the picture. And when it tries to be operational (witness Rice-led delegations to address the transition in Afghanistan or to negotiate with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu), it eats into its ability to do its core jobs: coordinating the development and implementation of foreign policy and providing advice to the president.

This is a costly approach. Concentrating power in the White House increases the likelihood of groupthink, especially in second terms like this one, when many of the stronger and diverse voices in the administration have left and have not been replaced by equally strong and diverse successors. Groupthink in an environment in which the leader is a cautious lawyer and his closest aides have campaign histories can lead to an overly tactical approach to problems. And if there is one great void that has dogged this administration, particularly in its second term, it is in the area of strategy.

Part of the shift to White House centrism no doubt has to do with Obama's personality -- he can be cool, somewhat closed, and wary -- and his history of managing the small staff of a senator. But some of it, as Obama's former national security advisor, Tom Donilon, told me, has been deliberate. Donilon pointed out that when one wants to use all the tools in the administration's toolbox, one needs to run things out of the NSC. Consequently, on many issues, foreign leaders want to know where the president stands and deal primarily with those perceived as close to him.

Although there is a certain logic to this, recent history suggests that the impulse needs to be held in check.

IT IS EASY, and perhaps natural, to conclude that the president can do little to improve his performance. But that is not true. In fact, some useful insights into how to get the president's national security act together come from what many in the White House -- not to mention the general public -- might see as the unlikeliest of sources: George W. Bush's administration.

Admittedly, the idea that Bush finished strong in office is not part of the common narrative of a presidency much more defined by its actions in the wake of 9/11, the errors associated with the Iraq invasion, the rendition and torture of prisoners, Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, and the related alienation of important allies worldwide. But during his second term, Bush and his team produced another, underappreciated story. On the national security and foreign policy side, this included the stabilization of Iraq via the surge, the introduction of the "light footprint" approaches to combating terrorism that were ultimately adopted by Obama (including the use of drones and special operations), the ramping-up of America's cyber-capabilities and cyber-defenses, and the advancement of the Millennium Challenge Corporation's work in Africa and of PEPFAR. There was also an important nuclear deal with India and stronger relations with Brazil, European allies, and moderate Arab states, among others. What's more, Bush's response to the financial crisis was courageous and made an enormous contribution to the speed with which the United States recovered, a speed much greater than in most other impacted countries, such as those of the European Union.

Several factors contributed to Bush's second-term turnaround. One was simply the experience of being in office. But not only did Bush and his team grow more effective, they also became more adaptive to the world around them.

The 9/11 attacks were a shock. Perhaps for the first time in U.S. history, a conflict began not with a speech or a headline, but with a moving, horrifying, indelible image that virtually every individual in the United States saw. It was more than a visceral jolt or a trauma, however: It also presented Americans with the idea that there were new dangers in the world that the country was ill-prepared to face. "In the aftermath of 9/11, we were essentially just reacting," former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told me in her Stanford University office after she ended her tenure in Foggy Bottom. "It took some time before we could stop, catch our breath, and make a critical reappraisal of what we were doing."

Reflection eventually followed, including for principals such as Rice and Stephen Hadley, her deputy national security advisor during Bush's first term who replaced her as national security advisor when she moved to the State Department. Hadley was deeply thoughtful and understood the NSC as well as anyone in Washington. Indicative of the evolution in his thinking -- and that of the team -- was a willingness to return to core assumptions. After his time at the White House, for example, Hadley told me, "Thinking back, I now wonder if our mistake may have been in not considering whether the reason Saddam Hussein was so secretive about his weapons of mass destruction capabilities was not because he had the weapons and wanted to conceal them, but because he did not have them and he wanted to hide that."

"From the Iranians," he posited. "From us."

Beyond traveling up the learning curve of a new, challenging period in U.S. foreign policy, Bush realized his team needed to change and began making both subtle and significant changes. Rice went to Foggy Bottom, and immediately the relationship between the secretary of state and the national security advisor improved from the sometimes-difficult one that existed between Rice and Colin Powell in Bush's first term.

"There's no doubt that going to State with the experience of having been national security advisor and having seen some of the problems State had been having was an advantage," Rice told me. "And it helped, of course, to have Steve Hadley at the NSC, who was a way better national security advisor than I was because he was the right personality for it. And I think I was the right personality to be secretary of state. I always laughingly say, 'We finally got into the right positions.'"

Rice knew that there was another factor that would shape the new national security team: Bush himself. He was no longer a neophyte president. In Rice's words, "The president had grown."

She saw evidence of this particularly in his newfound ability to corral the Defense Department. He would "demand things from the Pentagon. He was so much more confident, for instance, in putting together the surge than he was in the questions he would ask of the military going into Iraq." And as Bush took a firmer hand on Iraq policy, he gradually dialed back or offset the influence of his vice president, Dick Cheney (whom one senior Bush NSC official described as continuing to want to "keep breaking china"). At this point, according to Rice, Bush didn't want to do anything militarily with North Korea or Iran. "He wanted to engage in diplomacy," she said. "The president was in a different place."

Rice is clearly protective of the former president, but many top officials, some of whom went on to serve Obama, support her viewpoint. So too do the actions of the administration: Other than the surge within Iraq, there were no new major confrontations during Bush's second term, even in the face of provocations such as the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan or Russia's 2008 aggression into Georgia. Wherever possible, diplomatic responses -- or much more limited and, ideally, covert military responses -- were sought. This established the trend of treading more lightly, which Obama seized upon and then, in the eyes of his critics, carried too far.

Bush also strengthened his team. He brought in a new White House chief of staff, Joshua Bolten, who helped the president secure a new treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, who was to play a central foreign policy role and take the lead on China matters. (Paulson would also have a vital leadership role during the financial crisis that followed.) Bolten was a master manager, experienced in the ways of the executive branch but also deft and content to remain behind the scenes guiding events with a firm but sensitive touch. The freelancing, ego-driven, creative but disruptive Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was gone by 2006, replaced by Robert Gates, one of the most respected professional national security civil servants the United States has produced in the past three decades. And though Cheney remained influential, Bush became more hands-on, and his new team was all the more dedicated to working with the formal national security process, not via backdoors as had been the wont of Cheney and Rumsfeld during Bush's first term.

Given Hadley's decades of experience within and around the NSC apparatus, he had a clear philosophy of his job as national security advisor. The interagency process, he observed, was run in two ways. The domestic side, he said, was "very White House staff-focused." The staff would talk with the president and then design policy initiatives. Once a policy "was essentially cooked or well along," he said, the cabinet secretaries then joined to move forward on implementation.

Things were usually different on the national security side, where there was a more "principle-centric process" in developing policy "with the national security principals, the secretary of state, defense, you know, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, intelligence folks," Hadley said. "And then collectively, we brought our recommendations and choices to the president." (In an aside, Hadley said that in his view, the Obama administration often adopted the White House-driven domestic-policy approach for use on a wide range of national security and foreign policy issues.)

Noticeably, Bush changed course on key issues. Not only did he show courage on some of those changes -- adding troops for the surge was hugely unpopular, for example -- but he also showed a willingness to get personally involved to try to make things work. In some ways, this meant that he simply rolled up his sleeves and did the work of a manager. For example, he instituted weekly videoconferences with his team in Iraq, as well as regular exchanges with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

With benefit of hindsight, of course, the world now knows that the stabilization that occurred during the surge -- and as a result of this period of attention -- would not last and that Maliki was a slippery, dangerous character. But it is also clear that for the last two years of Bush's tenure, Iraq perhaps achieved its post-invasion high point. It is telling to note that when asked whether Obama would maintain regular interactions with Maliki, one of his aides reportedly suggested the president was disinclined to engage in that kind of "micromanagement" of such situations.

Bush saw himself as the coach of his team, with an obligation to lead and personally connect with his cabinet. During tough moments, I was told, he would play a vital role bucking up spirits during cabinet or one-on-one meetings. One former top official who served in both the Bush and Obama administrations spoke of a moment when Bush put his hands on the shoulders of a cabinet member, particularly distraught during the financial crisis, and attempted to "talk him off the ledge." This nonpartisan, experienced actor said, "If people could have seen those 20 minutes as I did, they would have thought they got their money's worth from Bush as president."

FOR OBAMA, much can clearly be learned from studying how Bush managed to remake his team, his own role, and his foreign policy in ways that, while not offsetting the errors of his first term, advanced U.S. interests substantially. The solution was not complicated: It necessitated a sound process, the right team, an engaged president, and a willingness to acknowledge errors and seek to correct them. It required a belief that management actually matters and that much could still get done in the administration's last couple of years.

To be sure, Obama has shown that it is within him to implement at least some of these changes. During his first term, after a shaky start, Obama's NSC process improved with the appointment of Donilon as national security advisor and McDonough as his deputy. The new team, with a respect for process discipline and a willingness to play a primarily behind-the-scenes role, enabled the president to more effectively engage a diverse, strong-minded group of national security principals. On critical issues, such as the bin Laden raid and dozens of other tactical decisions like it, the president played a strong leadership role and showed great character and courage. More recently, on matters like the National Security Agency scandal, Obama has begun to acknowledge and address some of his administration's errors.

It isn't too late for the president to build on these successes and undertake the broad reassessment that's needed -- and Americans can hope that his recent policy reversal that has led to limited intervention in Iraq may be a sign of a new willingness to do so. But challenges remain in the composition of his team; the structure of the administration; its risk-averseness and defensiveness; its tendency to be tactical and focused on the short term, rather than strategic in its approaches to problems; and the president's seeming unwillingness to devote more of himself to working with peers worldwide to shape and lead action on many big issues.

In short, Obama needs to take a page out of his predecessor's book -- and where that change must begin is crisply suggested by the old joke: How many psychotherapists does it take to change a light bulb? Just one. But the light bulb itself has to really want to change.

silencer

美国人如果还跳不出这种思维定式，在可预见的未来美国还会遇到同样或更大的麻烦。

易八泰

没钱买米事难办