The new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is the largest the world has ever known. (!)-snip-
But, the idea of an embassy this huge, this costly, and this isolated from events taking place outside its walls is not necessarily a cause for celebration. Traditionally, at least, embassies were designed to further interaction with the community in which they were built. Diplomats visited the offices of local government officials, shopped at local businesses, took their suits to the neighborhood dry cleaner, socialized with community leaders, and mixed with the general public. Diplomacy is not the sort of work that can be done by remote control. It takes direct contact to build goodwill for the United States and promote democratic values. Otherwise, there would be no reason for the United States to maintain its 250-plus diplomatic posts around the world. The embassy in Baghdad, however, appears to represent a sea change in U.S. diplomacy. Although U.S. diplomats will technically be “in Iraq,” they may as well be in Washington.
Judging by the embassy’s design, planners were thinking more in terms of a frontier outpost than a facility engaged with its community. “The embassy,” says Edward L. Peck, the former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, “is going to have a thousand people hunkered behind sandbags. I don’t know how you conduct diplomacy in that way.”
-snip-
If architecture reflects the society that creates it, the new U.S. embassy in Baghdad makes a devastating comment about America’s global outlook. Although the U.S. government regularly proclaims confidence in Iraq’s democratic future, the United States has designed an embassy that conveys no confidence in Iraqis and little hope for their future. Instead, the United States has built a fortress capable of sustaining a massive, long-term presence in the face of continued violence.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3936
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