Daniel W. Drezner Quotes
Changing course implies an admission that the previous course was incorrect, and no administration likes to do that.
Politics is peculiar in the sense that most things are seen as black or white. In most other areas of human endeavor, people change, not because the old way was incorrect, but because the new way might be better. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity did not totally invalidate the physics of Issac Newton; it just improved on it in some areas.
Daniel Drezner, Political Scientist, “Does Obama Have a Grand Strategy?”, Foreign Affairs, July / August 2013
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This statement for many illustrates perfectly the stubbornness and the intransigence of the Spanish at the time.
He was commenting on the Iraq War and the refusal of the George W. Bush Administration to alter its failing policy. The dilemma is that by changing policy whatever administration is in power admits that the previous policy was flawed.
Elements of the Army lied to the family of the dead soldier and the media, and then tried to cover up the lies. Abazaid is one of the few government high officials who was candid about his agency’s failure.
Emanuel argued that when the nation faced a crisis of one kind or another, and the administration had to take steps to cope with the crisis or ameliorate it, the time is often opportune to get some of their legislative program passed or reform areas that have been resistant.
When a scientist is persuaded to change his position, he is acting in the great tradition of the best of scientists. When a politician does the same, he is a flip flopper, without any real principles and clearly not to be trusted. A scientist would not be trusted by his peers if he did not readily change is views.
This quotation shows FDR doing something that politicians rarely do. The country was in the midst of the Great Depression and he was running for the Presidency against Herbert Hoover who as President would do little to help the destitute part of the population or improve the economy. Roosevelt did not lay out specific programs which he claimed would fix the problem. He himself really didn’t know for certain what would and what would not. However he promised bold experimentation—trying new things. When he was elected, he was able to fail with one program and just shift to another until enough were successful. But the great contrast was to Hoover who would do little.
Two of the 20th centuries greatest political leaders were Mao Tse-Tung and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In most respects, these two were polar opposites. However, they had one characteristic in common. They were both willing to try things they were not certain of. If they succeeded, make it a part of the national program. If it failed, try something else. See Mao {642795}.
In general, Justice Jackson was correct. Almost all major Supreme Court decisions that have ruled against the Legislative Branch or the Executive Branch, have been, reversed by a future Supreme Court, reversed by new legislation, reversed by a subsequent Constitutional Amendment, reversed by science or technology, or acknowledged by future generations to be wrong but were now moot and needed no correcting. The greatest of the Supreme Court decisions have generally been those that upheld the Congress and the Executive.
Bush assumes that this meant that all the people agreed with his decision to invade Iraq. While that might have been the case, there are other possibilities that many historians, journalists and other analysts have suggested. The Vice President, and his personal staff, were known to have visited them all and lobbied for the invasion. They pressured several of them who may have not wanted to run afoul of what seemed to be the most powerful vice president in American History. Or they may have thought that the decision had already been made, and it was time to join together and loyally support the policy decision that had been made. There were few strong independent thinkers in the top tier as Bush was not intellectually or emotionally inclined to have open staff arguments to work out a policy or very strong advisors with different points of view. The strongest of the advisors like Secretary of State Colin Powell had been lied to and persuaded there was “clear evidence” that Iraq was about to deploy a nuclear weapon. This made Powell an advocate. The intelligence given to Powell and the others was wrong and much was fabricated or obtained from an unreliable source who had been pushed as trustworthy by the Vice President. The CIA Director, had told those all that the evidence and case for the fact that Iraq was developing and close to deploying a nuclear weapon was a “slam dunk”.
Daniel W. Drezner is an American professor of international politics at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, an author, a blogger, and a commentator. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Project on International Order and Strategy at the Brookings Institution.
