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Thank you Richard ...
I was warming up my fingers to type "Country Team" when I saw your post.
Done right, there is a hell of a lot that the concept of the ambassador as leader of the "country team" can do, once the military has secured the country and effected an end of hostilities. And the ambassador has to be a professional, not a political patronage job (Shirley Temple, anyone?).
Damn, that reminds of me of what I said after Gulf War Number One (aka, Desert Shield/Desert Storm):
"The military has won the war, now it is the duty of the State Department to win the peace. Let's watch them fuck it up."
In a larger sense, it was the duty of entities other than the military to prevent Gulf War Number Two. Those entities included the State Department, the IAEA, the United Nnations, the Commerce Department, the AID, the CIA, etc. They didn't do it, and so the military had to return.
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