Conservatives cite a long-standing situation within the department of what is often called "local-itis," the process by which foreign service officers come to identify and sympathize more closely with the countries in whose affairs they specialize than with American interests as defined by the sitting president.
Some also see failures during Powell's leadership. John Tkacik, a 24-year veteran of the State Department now at the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, said there is a perception among conservatives that the U.S. inability to secure Turkey's cooperation in the war on Iraq was a diplomatic defeat for which the State Department should shoulder responsibility.
Many inside the Beltway regard the increasingly public rift between the agencies as just another in unending bureaucratic wars that mark life in Washington, but one that could damage U.S. interests if it encourages foreign countries to try to exploit the conflict. In South Korea, for example, many officials believe the North Korean leadership is more likely to miscalculate U.S. intentions because of the policy rift between administration hawks and doves.
Neoconservatives such as Charles Krauthammer argue that it is precisely the message that the U.S. is willing to use military force -- preemptively if necessary -- that will convince regimes such as North Korea and Syria to behave.
And America should not shirk from using this power to achieve democratic transformation in the Middle East and elsewhere, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz often says.
For decades, the State Department has been fighting a mostly losing battle with critics from successive incoming administrations who have accused it of everything from harboring Communists to coddling China.
"This building is chock-full of people who are deep, deep believers in this country and its principles and its defense," said a young diplomat who opposed the Iraq war.
The current ideological spat "has nothing to do with whether U.S. interests are being defended and everything to do with trying to check a Pentagon run amok. It's the 'Dr. Strangelove' syndrome: There's very much the dominance by this institution whose sole role ultimately ... is to kill people and blow things up and they do that very well."
"I, like many others, am carrying a great deal of anger and at times even shame over the way we as a nation are conducting ourselves," he said.
