(Washington) Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday vowed to heed the dissenting views of other US diplomats on his policies, and to sift through any mistakes made during the controversial withdrawal from Afghanistan.
In a speech on modernizing the State Department, he prided himself on having “revitalized” the “channel of dissension,” a well-established process by which diplomats can share opinions critical of the line with their hierarchy. official policy.
“Dissent is patriotic. And it must not only be protected, it must and it will be received with kindness ”, assured Antony Blinken, adding“ read and respond ”personally to all the opinions which reach him through this“ channel ”.
He called for the wider development of a “culture of constructive and professional dissent” to “strengthen” US foreign policy. And announced the creation of another “channel”, dedicated to new “ideas”, so that the less capped diplomats can contribute to the making of “creative” decisions.
The “Channel of Dissension” was created during the Vietnam War, and has had varying fortunes over the decades. Under President Donald Trump, Secretaries of State Rex Tillerson and then Mike Pompeo have been internally accused of ignoring divergent positions.
Last July, diplomats sent Antony Blinken a dissonant note warning him of a faster-than-expected collapse of the Afghan authorities in the face of the advance of the Taliban, thanks to the withdrawal of American forces. They asked him to immediately set up an airlift to evacuate the Americans and Afghans threatened by a seizure of power by the Islamists.
The government of President Joe Biden then accelerated the issuance of visas to these Afghans who had worked for the United States, but did not put in place a real evacuation operation until a disaster at the last moment, when the Taliban was in control. gates of Kabul. The Republican opposition, but also many voices within the Democratic majority or the State Department, criticized the management of this sequence.
Antony Blinken announced on Wednesday that he had requested a series of internal reports to determine how he could have better anticipated and organized the evacuations.
“We are not going to let this opportunity to learn and to do better pass by,” he promised.