When in October 2011 the total retreat of U.S. military from Iraq was officially confirmed plans continued for a massive embassy and several consulates with some 10,000 staff and some 5,000 security personal. I found that unlikely:
But that embassy is a fixed target which can easily be harassed with by rocket and mortar fire. Its logistic lines of communication are also open to permanent challenges. The mercenaries guarding it will have severely restricted rules of engagement and will not be able to prevent attacks.
Aside from those problems I find it dubious to believe that Iraqi politicians and government functionaries are willing to talk to all those diplomats. Why should they?
In the end most of the diplomats will sit in their offices with nothing to do but to be ready to jump up and head to the bunkers when the next rocket alarm goes off. Additonally there is pressure from Congress to reduce the State Department's budget.
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A year from now that presence may very well come down to more normal levels of just a few hundred people.
Security, logistics, Iraqi officials resisting, no one to talk to, costs were the reasons I foresaw.
A first reduction of the gigantic plans was announced a week later to a total of some 5-10,000. I insisted that the numbers would go down further.
It now seems that this was right:
Less than two months after American troops left, the State Department is preparing to slash by as much as half the enormous diplomatic presence it had planned for Iraq, a sharp sign of declining American influence in the country.
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[T]he Americans have been frustrated by Iraqi obstructionism and are now largely confined to the embassy because of security concerns, unable to interact enough with ordinary Iraqis to justify the $6 billion annual price tag.
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Convoys of food that were previously escorted by the United States military from Kuwait were delayed at border crossings as Iraqis demanded documentation that the Americans were unaccustomed to providing.
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At the Kirkuk airport, an Office of Security Cooperation, which handles weapons sales to the Iraqis and where a number of diplomats work, is frequently attacked by rockets fired by, officials believe, members of Men of the Army of Al Naqshbandi Order, a Sunni insurgent group.
All the problems I saw coming are there. They will continue to be there and will lead to further reductions, much more than now planned, until the embassy staff reaches a normal level of maybe 50-100 people.
But if an amateur writer on the Internets with no experience in diplomacy or Iraq could predict this why couldn't the U.S. State Department?
More: Is there anything the State Department got right during the last years? That "reset" with Russia where the Cyrillic inscription on the button Clinton presented actually spelled "overload" and which was no reset at all? The humiliation Israel provided Obama? The catastrophic relations with Pakistan? The recent UNSC debacle?
Asked differently: Is Hillary Clinton the worst (and thereby probably most dangerous) Secretary of State Obama could have chosen?
