Washington ? Who is running America’s foreign policy? Experienced diplomats or amateurs? A string of foreign policy failures bear the imprimatur of inexperienced hands.

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is President Bush’s primary foreign policy adviser, though she has no overseas experience. She was a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and Provost of Stanford University, where she is a tenured professor. Her government service includes a stint in nuclear strategic planning for the Joint Chiefs and service as staff director of Soviet and East European Affairs with the National Security Council under President George H. W. Bush. She is considered to be brilliant, but she is not a diplomat.

Secretary of State Colin Powell is the most respected man in America. A highly decorated Vietnam War veteran, he most notably served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War. Previously, he served as the National Security Adviser to President Ronald Reagan. Rice was his subordinate. He, too, has no diplomatic experience, and he appeared to be a reluctant participant in his recent unsuccessful foray into Mideast peacemaking.

Vice President Dick Cheney also made a stab at Mideast shuttle diplomacy. And he, too, failed. Cheney’s strength is legislative and executive. The first he proved through years of service in the House of Representatives; the second through service as the head of Haliburton Co., the large, international oil equipment firm in Texas. It was there that he came into contact with leaders from oil-producing countries, but that hardly qualified him as a diplomat.

Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni has been President Bush’s primary pointman in the Israeli-PLO conflict, but, once again, here is a diplomat without diplomatic experience. Like Powell, he is a decorated Vietnam War veteran and four-star general. His further military service included tours throughout the Middle East and Russia, but it was Department of Defense rather than State Department service.

The idea of bringing highly intelligent, talented and distinguished people such as these into diplomatic roles is certainly not unprecedented. It is even advantageous to bring varied experiences and fresh perspectives to what could otherwise become narrow organizations. But outside experiences and perspectives can improve, but not supplant, the backbone of an entity such as the State Department.

Ever since Henry Kissinger turned the position of national security adviser into a competitor of the secretary of State, America’s foreign policy has suffered from fragmentation. Now, the current administration is fragmenting it even further by turning to the vice president and a Marine Corps general for diplomatic missions. Such fragmentation usually results in greater control being asserted by the overseeing entity, which, in this case, is the president. But President Bush is noted for his preference to delegate, so what we have is fragmentation without a commensurate shift in power.

This became glaringly apparent in the recent Venezuelan fiasco. Sources tell us that Bush administration officials had advance notice of the coup against President Hugo Chavez. And when the world condemned it, America stood alone in silence. And when the coup failed, America stood alone in admonishing the restored Venezuelan president to abide by his country’s constitution. That America was complicit in the coup became transparent, and displayed more than bad policy. It was a display of incompetence borne of inexperience and fragmentation. In other words, too many people were grabbing the helm, and none of them knew how to steer.