Don't Blame the World: Blame the Lack of Confident Leaders
Surtout, Pas Trop de Zèle (Above All, No Zeal)
I spent three decades in the U.S. Foreign Service and took seriously the quote (perhaps apocryphal) from Talleyrand, the patron of diplomats: “surtout, pas trop de zèle” – above all, no zeal.?Keep passion out of it.?Speak with those with whom you disagree, listen to them even more, and judge ultimately whether there is sufficient common ground to make a deal.?Or, as Kennedy once said (not apocryphally), let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.
The Perspective of the Other
When I left the diplomatic service, I worked from 2015 through 2019 as president of a New York-based nonprofit called the EastWest Institute.?The Institute, or EWI as it was known, was American, but sought to find common ground globally by fostering dialogue on issues of contention from Beijing to Islamabad to Ankara.?We were one of the few American NGOs with an office in Moscow.?Yes, of course there was a built-in cultural bias for liberal democracy characteristic of an American institution.?But half of the directors on our board were not Americans, and we prided ourselves at our willingness and ability to see things from the perspective of the other.?Indeed, that was our job.?Hosting Turkish President Erdogan or Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif in New York for roundtable discussions on issues of international importance was not meant to be a gesture of support for any particular country or stance but an honest effort to find out where we could work together.