Leadership for Intelligence Professionals   

The Dilemma of Dissent

Richard N. Haas served on the National Security Council Staff as the principal Middle East adviser to President George H.W. Bush (1989-1993).   He served as the State Department Director of Policy Planning during the administration of President George W. Bush (2001-2003).  He is now President of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author or editor of eleven books on U.S. foreign policy.  His latest book is War of Necessity, War of Choice: A Memoir of Two Iraq Wars. In that book and in a Newsweek article from which the following material is extracted, he shares his thinking about speaking out in dissent to policy when working in the government based on his experience during the run-up to the Iraq war.

Dissent is difficult.  It can constitute a real dilemma for the person who disagrees.  On one hand, you owe it to your conscience and to your bosses to tell them what they need to hear rather than what they want to hear.  Speaking truth to power us actually a form of loyalty.  It is the best and at times the only way to make sure that government (or any organization) lives up to its potential.  No matter how good the advice, however, there will be times when it is resented or rejected.  It may be rebuffed on the merits, or because of politics or personalities.  Sometimes, smart people just see things differently.  It doesn’t matter.

What should you do when you are ignored or overruled?  One option is to continue to challenge the prevailing wisdom or preference.  Of course you risk being shut out or ignored.  The making of policy in government or any organization has something in common with football.  Activity is concentrated near the line of scrimmage.  It makes little sense to position yourself in the far end zone if you want to be a factor.  Much the same holds for policy.  If all the interest and attention is focused on one set of questions, it is usually of little or no value to place yourself totally outside the debate and raise concerns that are judged to be irrelevant or questions that are deemed to be settled….

For me this dilemma was anything but an abstraction.  The decision to attack Iraq was arguably the defining decision of George W. Bush’s presidency.  I thought then and I think now that this was a war of choice.  And I thought it was the wrong choice.

One option that to me was not an option was to leak or to undermine policy.  Another option was to continue to argue against the war after the decision had been all but made.  I did some of this but not a lot.  While it may have made me and other skeptics feel better to do more, that would have reduced any influence we might have had on planning for the war and its aftermath.  There are times you have to let go and move on, and this was one of them.  In this case, moving on meant focusing on involving the Congress and the United Nations in the decision making and planning for the war.  I calculated I could still influence important aspects of the policy if not its core.

There is a danger in this.  It is not easy to rationalize when in reality you’ve become little more than an enabler.  One way to avoid this danger is to resign.  Leaving is in many ways the most dramatic form of dissent.  Putting aside personal reasons (health, finances, family) there are two potentially valid policy reasons for resigning….

One reason to resign is because you disagree fundamentally on a major issue….

Iraq obviously constituted a major issue, and although I disagreed with the thrust of U.S. policy, I did not resign.  My reasoning was straightforward.  As I said, I was 60-40 against going to war.  No organization could function if people left every time they lost a 60-40 decision….

In time I left anyway….But I was open to leaving.  This relates to the second reason for resigning, namely, a pattern of decisions that makes it clear that you have little in common with your colleagues.  I was losing far more arguments than I was winning….

Adding to the frustration was that I was frequently called upon to defend policies that I opposed….On many occasions I had to rebut to outsiders precisely the arguments I myself had put forward inside the government.  That this occurs on occasion is inevitable and part of what any professional must expect to deal with.  But when it becomes the norm it is time to consider whether what you are doing makes sense.

This only adds to the dilemma.  Walking away from government was hard.  It was not what I had trained to do.  I’d worked hard to get where I was.  Government service at its best can be interesting, it can be heady and it can matter.  There are few things more fulfilling in life than participating in and even contributing to history.

Those looking for hard and fast rules on dissent should be prepared to be disappointed.  Sometimes it is better to confront, other times it makes more sense to work around.  Sometimes it is better to leave, other times to stay.  When it comes to dissent, there is no right answer, much less one that’s right for all situations.  That’s what makes it a dilemma.

Source:

Extracted from “The Dilemma of Dissent” in Newsweek May 11/May 18 2009.