Rescue Iraq

The Back Channel

 

In just a few days Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China will meet in Vienna to discuss how to move forward with the JCPOA (Joint Commission of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) -- basically, the Iran nuclear deal of which William J. Burns was the primary mover opening up a "Back Channel" with Iran and enabling the P5+1 to step up into full flung negotiations... a process that might have taken years, or perhaps may have never occurred.

 

And yet, the United States will not be at that meeting, because as Trump so eloquently stated it was "the worst deal ever."

 

When we withdraw from the world's most pressing problems, put a hand over our mouths, and essentially walk out of the room, we leave Russia and China at the table with our closest allies, our old friends, and enable them to establish lines of communication around us, imagining a new global order that circumvents U.S. dominance, giving rise to thoughts of how things might be different without us at the head of the table.

 

These are certainly tremulous times, and William J. Burns book could not come at a more propitious moment.

 

If you just read the back cover of this book you'll find some of the most well respected political servants of our day starting with James Baker and ending with Condolezza Rice -- interspersed are also Hillary Clinton, Henry Kissinger, Madeline Albright, John Kerry, and George Shultz. Books like this that draw the applause from such diametrically opposed political leaders hardly exist in our deeply divided world today. This is a book worth reading.

 

I am just shocked that within 4 months of it's publish date that it maintains such a low comment rating on Amazon. How is that possible? Burns is a gold mine of wisdom and political history, and his book ought to be standard reading for every foreign service diplomat and anyone looking to understand how the world really turns.

 

But, perhaps, it shouldn't be all that surprising as Burns himself concedes:

 

"Selling the practical virtues of diplomacy is a complicated undertaking. For all the debate about "hard power", "soft power", and "smart power" in recent years, diplomacy is most often about quite power, the largely invisible work of tending alliances, twisting arms, tempering disputes, and making long-term investments in relationships and societies. Diplomacy is punctuated only rarely by grand public break-throughs. Its benefits are hard to appreciate."

 

Diplomacy "is the patient accumulation of partial successes." - Kissinger

 

"... cutting funding for diplomacy would require him 'to buy more ammunition.'"- Jim Mattis

 

Burns definitely hits the nail on the head when he states that "demonstrating that diplomacy and international influence are aimed as much at facilitating and accelerating domestic renewal as they are at shoring up global order."

 

Threading that needle and getting the American populace to really see and believe that would take a miracle, I believe, but it's true, so true.

 

This book really does come at such an important time in our history coming off two "unilateral" wars where we did what we did because we could without taking the time to win "common cause" amongst our allies.  We must recapture the art of diplomacy, or risk being sidelined by the "civilized" powers of the day that continue to believe and act like diplomatic channels still have a role.

 

So, in light of the important meeting in Vienna we need to pause as a nation and consider our assumptions that life will continue as it has with the U.S. at the head of the table while Russia and China begin to weigh in more heavily upon "solving" the key problems of our world today.

 

These final words of Burns ring almost prophetic:

 

"Pulling out of the nuclear deal alienated allies who had joined us in the effort for many years. Reimposition of U.S. sanctions in the face of opposition from partners further damaged a tool of policy already suffering from abuse, driving other countries to lessen reliance on the dollar and the U.S. financial system."

 

Could the July 28th meeting in Vienna spark a new world order -- a way around the U.S. financial system? Possibly. With Iran making so many missteps in the Gulf probably not right away, but we need to play our cards more wisely if we want to continue to lead the world.

 

Thank you, William J. Burns for your service to our country and for demonstrating to us all and recording it in this book the words that we all acknowledge deep down as essentially true, "Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far."

Mission Drift

This past fall I finally decided to pick up a book that had sat on my shelf for over a year. Mission Drift is a book written by Peter Greer and Chris Horst that helps organizations determine whether they are in danger of drifting from their original mission.

In the foreword, Andy Crouch says, “The greatest temptations, it seems, come at moments of great success or promise of success, the moments when it is easiest to forget our desperate need for God, without whom we can do nothing truly good or enduring.”

I highly recommend this book for its insights into organizations that have done it right, those that haven’t, and what it takes to stay Mission True to one’s original goals and ideals.

Unfortunately, “It’s the exception that an organization stays true to its mission,” said Chris Crane, president and CEO of Edify. “The natural course — the unfortunate natural evolution of many originally Christ-centered missions — is to drift,” he said.

 Without rewriting the entire book here, I would like to point out some crucial parts that took my breath away.

On page 92, the authors tell the story of Ruth Callanta, who is a leading expert on development having worked for the World Bank and the Philippine Business for Social Progress, which facilitated ‘poverty alleviation efforts between business and nonprofits.”

Her travels have given her a broader perspective in development across the globe and as she observed more closely a startling pattern began to surface. “The aid and development community was inhibited because of pride and ambition. International aid agencies came in and truly believed they had all the solutions — so they steamrolled over the local citizen and imposed ill fitting solutions.”

Her conclusion was that, “Greed, pride, and self-centeredness keep even the noblest intentions from effectively working.”

If I can extrapolate a little bit here I would summarize her conclusions by saying that the best intentions with the best of plans will fail without the Spirit of God intervening to check greed, pride, and self-centeredness. In other words, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the secret sauce, the missing ingredient in the mix that makes it all work. Even when “doing everything right” it takes self-sacrifice, humility, and love to produce real change, and the giver of those qualities is none other than Jesus Himself.

So, if any of us feels tempted to “tone down our message” in the hopes of getting more funding, or having ‘deeper’ influence, just pause and think - what kind of successful influence can we really have without Christ? And what amount of money can really make things work apart from the power and inspiration of God’s Spirit which happens to be the only force on the planet I know of that can conquer the vices of greed, pride, and self-centeredness?

The other area where this book really hit me hard was in the arena of HR and developing your team. “Leading organizations,” they say, “are patient in hiring and believe that an open position, no matter how painful, is still better than a position filled with the wrong person.”

“Close enough” just isn’t “good enough” for Mission True organizations, said Phil Smith, who has served as CEO and chairman of several publicly traded companies. ‘It is not your enemies you have to worry about, it is your supporters and employees who ‘almost’ have the vision. Eat the whole enchilada, or go somewhere else.’”

It’s all about the DNA of your organization and the culture that you cultivate on a day in and day out basis that makes the difference. As Phil Smith says later on, “One of the primary reasons for Mission Drift is that people join your organization who are very excited about portions of your vision, but are either opposed to or don’t care about the rest of it.”

Mission True organizations recognize that each and every employee represents the mission of the organization. So, hire well.

All in all, this book really excels, and I hope that other like-minded leaders will pick it up and learn from their astute observations and research.

After reading it, I think that you will conclude with me that “Mission Drift” isn’t just something that happens if you do something wrong, it is happening all the time, and only a well thought plan with multiple layers of accountability will prevent us from slipping too.