The arrogance of Ashton Carter

Ted Gup, Politico - A mere three months in office, Ash Carter is quickly establishing himself as the scold of Washington. His main target: the Iraqis. On Wednesday, the defense secretary once again denigrated Iraqi troops, saying a “combination of disunity, deserters, and so-called ‘ghost soldiers’—who are paid on the books but don’t show up or don’t exist—has greatly diminished their capacity.” Carter also told the House Armed Services Committee that efforts to recruit Iraqis against the Islamic State had thus far produced dismal results—a mere 7,000 recruits of the 24,000 hoped for. Three weeks earlier, following the fall of Ramadi, Carter spoke disdainfully on Sunday television of the Iraqi military’s performance in the field—how they cut and ran and showed “no will to fight.”

It remains to be seen whether Carter’s bluntness will inspire the Iraqis to action—or only further alienate a people whose culture does not react well to public shame, not to mention slurs on their manhood. But no one who knows him well should be surprised by Carter’s apparent arrogance, which appears to be unmitigated by any concept of diplomacy—least of all me.

Because Carter scolded me once. I hope the Iraqis get over it sooner than I did.

In the fall of 2003, when he was on the faculty of Harvard’s Kennedy School, and I was a fellow of the school’s Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy, I tried to audit his course in national security. I simply wanted to listen. Carter was a formidable figure, an Oxford-educated physicist and Rhodes scholar, a summa cum laude grad of Yale and a rising star at the Pentagon who was already displaying the skills that would make him chief operating officer. He was the ultimate budget and acquisitions guy. A technocrat maybe, but a brilliant one.

The first day of class I took my place in the classroom—there were more than a few empty seats. The assistant nodded in my direction and smiled. Then Carter entered the room. He immediately fixed his gaze on me, perhaps because I was 53 at the time and old enough to have fathered some of those around me. He walked directly over to me and demanded—not asked—but demanded to know who I was. I attempted to explain that I was a fellow, that I had cleared my attendance with his assistant, and that—well, that was as far as I got.

I do not remember his exact words, but they were to the effect that I was to clear out. I do remember his edict was followed with an emphatic “Now!” It was a stinging rebuke. I gathered my papers and exited the room, humiliated. (In high school I had once been ejected from algebra for doodling in class, but this was somehow even more degrading.)

That afternoon I shared the experience with some staffers at the Kennedy School. They were hardly surprised. Tact was not known to be Carter’s strong suit. His imperious manner was familiar to many. As a professor of some 30 years myself, I did not begrudge him the right to ask me to leave. It was his rudeness—his bullying—that was so off-putting.

I am a former staff writer for both the Washington Post and Time, so I am accustomed to the sometimes-brusque ways of those in power. But what troubled me about the encounter was Carter’s volatility and intemperance. And my introduction to him apparently mirrored the experiences of others in Washington. Jofi Joseph, a former National Security Council staffer once tweeted of Carter, “In a town full of egos, Ash Carter may have one of the largest.” Thomas Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute said of him: “He’s a prickly personality, he’s not exactly the world’s greatest communicator, he makes Chuck Hagel look like Winston Churchill.”

And it goes back to when he was 11