Please God, Not Another Blue-Ribbon Panel - By John Norris

The first item on a modern secretary of state's to-do list these days appears to be establishing a high-level review that promises to change the way America conducts diplomacy. Colin Powell launched the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative. Condoleezza Rice bundled her reforms under the broad banner of "Transformational Diplomacy." Hillary Clinton conducted the first-ever Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), modeled on similar efforts at the Pentagon. One can only imagine that the next secretary of state will feel inclined to conduct a second QDDR, or roll out another high-profile effort to reform the State Department's archaic bureaucracy.

All of these reviews were conducted because of a realization by respective secretaries of state -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- that America's foreign policy architecture is poorly structured to meet the demands of the very dynamic world around us.

So why does the United States continue to need such reform initiatives over and over again? The answer is simple: All of these blue-ribbon efforts have done a great job identifying the key problems plaguing the U.S. foreign policy apparatus. They just haven't been able to fix them.

The reviews have resulted in some progress, but largely around the margins -- some improved training, higher staffing levels, and the usual reshuffling of bureau names and responsibilities. None of them has been able to fix more fundamental problems, however, because none of these secretaries of state was willing to engage Congress in a major reform effort. Real reform requires not just a determined secretary of state, but buy-in from the legislative branch: Congress must pass new legislation to get rid of many of the existing and conflicting directives, objectives, and requirements that so muddy U.S. foreign policy.

It is no secret why Powell, Rice, and Clinton had little appetite for engaging Congress on these issues. Even minor pieces of foreign policy or foreign-aid legislation quickly get gunked up with a slew of amendments on abortion, religious freedom, guns, efforts to punish the dictator of the day, the United Nations and a host of other black-helicopter concerns. The idea of working with Congress to pass a major overhaul of the foreign policy architecture surely seems quasi-suicidal.

In an environment so rancorous that avoiding credit defaults and fiscal cliffs is difficult to manage, many have simply dismissed the idea of actually reforming State and USAID as impossible.

But it may not be as hard as it looks. The State Department should consider taking a page from the playbook of the Pentagon, which developed an interesting model for getting out of a similar trap. Whether the next administration is Obama II or Romney I, it would be wise to adopt an approach to foreign affairs reform modeled on the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission -- or as it is more commonly known, BRAC.

The BRAC process was created to deal with an equally difficult challenge -- how to get Congress to approve base closures and troop realignments when those decisions had immense political fallout in members' districts. Efforts to redraw the map of bases in the United States had foundered again and again on the shoals of opposition by a handful of congressman and senators who were willing to sabotage the entire process rather than give up a base in their state.