Paul Bremer to Teach at American University

If you’re famous, connected and need a job, you can get hired at American University. That’s happening to Paul Bremer this September. According to my information, Paul Bremer has been hired to teach at American University’s School of International Service this fall. What will he teach, ”International Chaos-by Design,” “How to Create an Insurgency,” or maybe “Incompetence, Arrogance, Ego, and Their Application to International Affairs.”

According to my information, many professors at AU were consulted in this decision, but as is usually the case it was made by a select handful. Most likely, these were personal friends of Bremer’s who knew him over the years. What is very likely, they served together with him as Foreign Service Officers at the State Department and wanted to bring him over to AU to hang out with them. What is also likely is they felt sorry for him and he needed a job. I tend to think the last of these scenarios is the most probable. It would stand to reason Paul Bremer would have difficulty finding work after his performance in Iraq in 2003-2004.

But what is striking about this decision is that it is so contradictory. How can American University have a school devoted to “international service,” when the guy they just hired is probably the most glaring example of what “international service” is not supposed to be? If anything, Paul Bremer is the poster child of bad international service. Wasn’t it Paul Bremer who disbanded the Iraqi Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Interior, thereby disbanding the entire security infrastructure of the country, thereby leaving it defenseless against the growing insurgency, and also feeding that same insurgency with fresh recruits–the very same policemen and soldiers he just fired? Wasn’t it Paul Bremer who fired everyone in the Iraqi government and Iraqi society who was a member of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party, thereby firing everyone who had a clue how to run the government’s institutions and bureaucracy? If I recall, it was Paul Bremer who did all these things, yet now he’s going to teach at American University and pass along all that great background and knowledge onto your kids. And he’s going to get paid to do it with your money.

I honestly feel sorry for Paul Bremer. I do. He messed up royally. But that doesn’t mean you hand the guy a high paying job. Worse, you don’t give him a job “teaching” people based on his “expertise.” That just doesn’t make any sense. But, as is often the case, he got his job because he was connected. In Washington, DC, more than any other place in the country, that’s all that counts. He probably had cocktails at a social gathering of elites recently and popped the question, and got the answer he was looking for. Who knows? But the decision to hire Paul Bremer as a professor at American University is so crazy, the example of the cocktail party fits the bill as well as anything else.

When will America learn from its past mistakes. Obviously, if Bremer is going to teach at AU, we haven’t yet. I would imagine the same cabal who hired Bremer at AU were very likely the most vocal in their opposition to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, of George W. Bush and his administration, and of Donald Rumsfeld in particular. And it was Rumsfeld who hired Bremer. But these same people hired the one guy who implemented the worst part of Bush’s Iraqi strategy, and he did it on his own.  The worst thing we did in Iraq wasn’t even done by Bush or Rumsfeld, it was done by Paul Bremer, the self-proclaimed genius in international affairs and foreign policy. He might have had years in the field, but when it came to the actual execution of foreign affairs and foreign policy, he was an abject failure. And now he’s going to teach students about it.

It is clear those at American University who teach about mistakes the United States has made in its foreign affairs haven’t learned a thing if they’re making the mistake of hiring Paul Bremer. They need to go back to school themselves.