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The Secret Openings of US Foreign Policy

Podcasts May 7, 2019 Elmira Bayrasli and William J. Burns

When Donald Trump took the stage at his inauguration in January 2017, he promised to put an end to the multilateral approach that had marked US foreign policy since the end of World War II, pledging to put “America First.” Ambassador William Burns joins our podcast to discuss what that means for the Foreign Service members who work on behalf of US interests abroad.

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Elmira Bayrasli

Writing for PS since 2016
3 Commentaries

Elmira Bayrasli is the co-founder and CEO of Foreign Policy Interrupted and the author of From The Other Side of The World: Extraordinary Entrepreneurs, Unlikely Places.

William J. Burns

Writing for PS since 2016
1 Commentary

William J. Burns, former US Deputy Secretary of State, is Director of the CIA.

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j. von Hettlingen May 7, 2019

Elmira Bayrasli conducts an interview with William J. Burns, author of his latest work: “The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal.” Burns, a former career diplomat, fluent in Arabic and Russian, is a living legend in his circles. Being one of America’s most seasoned and accomplished diplomats, he had served five presidents of both parties, and was US ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008.
Burns managed some of the most sensitive and high-profile portfolios – like back-channel talks with Iran that led to the historic nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 in 2015 – before he retired as deputy secretary of state in 2014. His track record of dealings with Iran spanned several decades. It is widely know that Burns is the diplomat with the richest experience of dealing directly with Iranians. Few other US officials in recent times can claim a background of comparable depth.
He knows what gains tough negotiations can yield, and explains why it matters to return to the heyday of diplomacy. Needless to say, he takes aim at America’s current foreign policy, saying Trump has no idea how to use its credible tool to leverage its unprecedented strength. In just two years, Trump has transformed his predecessor’s handling of foreign policy into an international joke. The laborious work of making incremental inroads with adversaries and friends alike has been replaced by knee-jerk responses to some of today’s dire and pressing global challenges.
Unlike Trump and his hawkish advisers, like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, who both advocate for military solutions, Burns and Obama believe that talking with Iran or even America’s most difficult adversaries is not an appeasement or a weakness, because it is what diplomacy is all about. “It’s not a favor or reward for them, but a sensible, coldblooded investment in avoiding misunderstandings and collisions, and making our concerns clear,” according to Burns.
Without regular diplomatic contact, a country easily loses touch with political realities. Even worse, America runs the risk of losing the moral high ground afforded to honest international brokers. However, the Trump administration has failed to realise how important it is to build credibility with global partners, whose support the country would need to deal with other rogue states, that violate international rules and laws and pose a security threat to the wider world.
A year ago Trump pulled the US out of the JCPOA with Iran. Although Tehran is not an existential threat to the US, Americans seem to have an obsessive fear of the country. Burns agrees that Iran has had “an outsized hold on our imagination” over the past few decades. He says Tehran is skilled at taking advantage of regional vulnerabilities and, as a result, is capable of posing real threats to America’s friends and interests in the region. He argues for a version of “containment” – to limit Iran’s ability to subvert others, engage them to manage the biggest risks, “just as we did with the Soviets, and look for creative ways to exploit those internal contradictions.”
He would advise Mike Pompeo to handle the Iranian challenge smartly. Yet Pompeo has no desire to keep the nuclear deal going, and to use it as the basis for further negotiations aimed at removing its imperfections. Using the process as the centrepiece of “a wider strategy” to reshape Iran’s behaviour and push back against its threatening actions in the region, would remove one important layer of risk in a highly risky region. The dumb way is to abandon the agreement, operate on the false assumption that unilateral American pressure is going to bring the regime to its knees.
Burns is right: It is a lot easier to tear down diplomacy than it is to build it up. Under Trump’s disasatrous presidency, the US-led global order is like a bridge that had weakened over decades and that finally cracked under the strain. The State Department and the National Security Council staff are gutted. American alliances are in disarray. Today, the interagency policy process that Burns served for 31 years has all but collapsed. But he is still optimistic about the potential of American diplomacy, relying on America’s “resilience” to survive the damage inflicted by Trump.
- Elmira Bayrasli May 8, 2019
  
  Well said J.Von Hettlingen!
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The Secret Openings of US Foreign Policy

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