MORE ON THE FPC….Is the American foreign policy community too hawkish, as Glenn Greenwald and others suggest? Joe Klein demurs:
As a member of the Council on Foreign Relations for about 15 years now, I can guarantee you that “hawkish” would come way down my list of adjectives to describe the Priesthood, well behind “geriatric,” “bland,” “somnolent” and “willing to talk anything to death, especially things like the coming economic slowdown in Uruguay.”
….Greenwald’s basic point is quite correct: the foreign policy/think tank Priesthood is as smug and hidebound as any that exists. But it is too…diplomatic…to be anything but painfully judicious — and it has, more often than not, been a brake on the foaming mouth militarism favored by the neocons.
It’s that last sentence that’s important. Is it true? If the foreign policy commentariat is really that bland and somnolent, after all, how much of a brake can they be?
In an update, Klein also suggests that we make a sharp distinction between “the foreign policy community” and “the guys who jabber about war on TV.” That’s probably a wise idea.
