Kiesling, who lives in Greece, knows about standing up to the White House. Years ago, he\u2019d been in the same spot, becoming one of a handful of officials who quit the Bush administration to protest the Iraq War. These days, government personnel are seeking his counsel and that of other high-profile dissenters as they struggle to respond to Trump policies they believe are unethical, dangerous and maybe even unconstitutional.
Kiesling\u2019s advice is that it\u2019s too early to quit \u2013 he urges anxious bureaucrats to carry on working, even as they close their social media accounts, switch to encrypted messaging and start plotting.
\u201cOnly if you stay professional can you get away with being totally Machiavellian about subverting the presidency,\u201d Kiesling said with a laugh, in a phone interview from his home in Athens.
There\u2019s no headcount of dissidents within the government, but the signs of rebellion are there. State Department employees already have issued a rare dissent cable expressing widespread opposition to Trump\u2019s immigration order. That\u2019s one early signal, Kiesling said, that this bureaucratic class will be willing to stand up to the White House in a way that Iraq War-era diplomats did not.
Kiesling has been back in the spotlight since reports emerged last month of government workers crying at their desks in anguish or creating rogue Twitter accounts to thwart Trump administration edicts. He\u2019s been quoted in The New Yorker and on NPR about opposition tactics; his Facebook postings read like a how-to manual for dissidents.
Kiesling\u2019s advice to uneasy government employees is stay put for now, discreetly look for allies and wait for the White House to cross the line into illegal or unethical conduct. President Richard Nixon\u2019s downfall, he noted, was brought about by \u201cthe paranoid search for enemies\u201d and subsequent cover-up.
\u201cThere is no U. S. policy unless it\u2019s on paper. Anything that\u2019s on paper should be shared with relevant members of Congress at this stage,\u201d Kiesling said. \u201cIf it\u2019s an unspoken policy then it\u2019s probably illegal to follow.\u201d
He also advises building alliances across agencies and setting institutional rather than personal red lines. And if an employee simply can\u2019t go on and reaches the decision to resign, Kiesling said, then he or she should stay a bit longer to conduct even bolder acts of opposition because there\u2019s no longer a concern about getting fired.
\u201cIf you have reached your personal red line, that is not a license to quit,\u201d Kiesling said. \u201cThat is a license to be brave.\u201d
White House spokesman Sean Spicer has made it clear that dissent is not welcome, saying that anxious bureaucrats should \u201ceither get with the program or they can go.\u201d That warning sent chills among diplomats, who have long-established channels to voice dissent and protections in place for those who use them.
The American Foreign Service Association, a professional group that gives a prize every year for constructive dissent, has faced criticism from some members for not speaking more forcefully against the Trump administration\u2019s jabs at career diplomats. Last week, the association sent out an advisory that noted legal protections for dissent but also cautioned that even a temporary walkout would be considered a strike, which could result in firings. A spokesman for the association did not return a call seeking comment.
Kiesling is among a small cadre of former officials whose acts of rebellion are now being studied by a burgeoning resistance movement within the administration. He and his Iraq-era peers are the most recent examples, but diplomats and defense professionals are passing around the lessons learned from earlier cases, too.
There\u2019s Ann Wright , who\u2019s said in interviews that she received more than 400 emails from colleagues who quietly supported her decision to resign from the State Department over the Iraq War and the Patriot Act\u2019s \u201cunnecessary curtailment of civil liberties.\u201d Matthew Hoh , a Marine captain-turned-diplomat, in 2009 became the first U. S. official known to resign over the war in Afghanistan.
Another case study is George Kenney, the first of four State Department officials to resign over U. S. policies during ethnic cleansing in Bosnia in the early 1990s. Even farther back were four resignations of senior officials during the Vietnam War.
As with the other dissidents, Kiesling\u2019s reasons for stepping down are echoed in today\u2019s concerns over Trump.
He warned in his 2003 resignation letter about the perils of \u201csuch systematic distortion of intelligence, such systematic manipulation of American opinion.\u201d The line referred to the bogus prewar intelligence on Iraq, but it\u2019s just as apt for the Trump\u2019s record of lies, half-truths and exaggerations on matters large and small.
Another line in the resignation letter sounds timely after a week in which Trump reportedly feuded with the leaders of Australia and Mexico and infuriated Arab allies with the visa bans.
\u201cWe have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of international relationships the world has ever known. Our current course will bring instability and danger, not security,\u201d Kiesling warned the Bush government.
Kiesling thinks dissidents can prevail in thwarting the policies they find most egregious \u2013 an optimism that\u2019s based on the diplomats\u2019 professionalism, he said, as well as the Trump inner circle\u2019s inexperience.
\u201cThe difference with the Iraq War is that we all just watched in slow-motion suspense while the administration pretended war wasn\u2019t inevitable. We were in denial up until the last minute, so we were the slowly boiling frogs,\u201d Kiesling said. \u201cThis time, a blast of heat has woken everybody up.\u201d<\/p>\n