An admiring portrait of now-former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the New York Times (is there any other kind of portrait of Clinton in the Times?) over the weekend is in some ways a follow-up to a comment let slip by Clinton’s successor, John Kerry, last week. Kerry told the Boston Globe that President Obama called and offered him the job a full week before Susan Rice dropped her embattled bid for the post and withdrew her name from consideration.
If that’s true–if Obama really always wanted the dour and pliable Kerry over the sharp, independent and tough Rice–the Times profile of Clinton helps explain why. Clinton, according to the Times, was too much of an interventionist for the Obama White House. This insight illuminates the Kerry selection: John Kerry can give you a thousand reasons not to do something. Kerry and Obama both believe it looks thoughtful to appear aloof, uninterested, bored. Clinton and Rice, on the other hand, are always in motion. Kerry will be quite the change of pace, if his statements during his confirmation hearings are any indication, as the Washington Times notes:
“I’ve had personal conversations prior to being nominated as secretary with [Russian] Foreign Minister [Sergei] Lavrov, which indicated a Russian willingness to in fact see President Assad leave, but they have a different sense of the timing and manner of that.”
He added that he hopes to use his new stature as secretary of state “to really take the temperature of these different players.”…
“China is cooperating with us now on Iran,” Mr. Kerry said. “I think there might be more we could perhaps do with respect to North Korea.”
“There could be more we could do in other parts of the Far East, and hopefully we can build those relationships that will further that transformation,” he added. “We make progress. It’s incremental. You know, it’s a tough slog. And there just isn’t any single magic way to approach it.”
As this shows, Kerry has great plans to tell you about progress you didn’t know we were making at the State Department. Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. In fact, Kerry believes this of his time in Washington, too. “I accomplished a lot,” Kerry told the Globe. “A lot more than people know.” And his assurance that the Russian government wants Assad out also, but they just have a “different sense of the timing” is classic Kerry; it’s not technically untrue to say that that the difference between now and never is a “sense of the timing.” But that doesn’t make it any less ridiculous.
Yet there is an argument to be made that Kerry is simply being realistic, and will actually helm a much diminished foreign policy apparatus. If diplomacy is the art of saying “nice doggie” until you can find a rock, outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had some sobering words about that rock:
The Army would be forced to slash its ranks by an additional 100,000 soldiers over 10 years if the process called sequestration went into effect, Panetta said in an interview with USA TODAY. That reduction would be in addition to the 80,000 soldiers it plans to shed over the next five years to a force of about 490,000. The Marine Corps will drop about 20,000 troops under the current plan, which calls on the Pentagon to reduce spending by $487 billion over the next decade.
Congress has until March 1 to reach a deal to stop the cuts, which were created in a summer 2011 deal between Congress and President Obama to raise the nation’s debt ceiling.
“We are the world’s most powerful military, and we use that to promote peace and stability in the world,” Panetta said. “It would be a shameful act of irresponsibility if Congress just stood to the side and let sequester take place. It would turn America from a first-rate power into a second-rate power.”
The story doesn’t make it clear, but that sequester, and its attendant cuts to the military, was an idea cooked up by the Obama White House during negotiations with GOP leadership. Consequently, Hillary Clinton’s interventionist advocacy might have done much to elevate Kerry as Obama’s preferred second-term secretary of state.
Obama, it seems, was tired of being challenged for his inaction, and tired of having people around him who saw the world differently. But even more so, Obama understood he might have had more use for an active secretary of state if he were going to give the military the tools to back up the sense of idealism about American’s role in the world that a Hillary Clinton or a Susan Rice values, but which someone like John Kerry is happy to make do without.
Seems Samantha Power is leaving the WH, which would be a good sign that the UN's ResponsibilitytoProtect (R2P) mandate will, for a while, be consigned as 'good idea, but too much unintended consequences'. n nI guess Commentary still wants all these interventions, hence "…the sharp, independent and tough [Susan] Rice…" Independent? Same Rice who was just yesterday blasted for [fill in the blanks] n noh never mind. n nNow we get to see pure, unvarnished blaming Israel for all the problems in the Middle East (which astonishingly now spans from Algeria to Afghanistan), because Obama will have his Team of Linkage in place. n nMay John Kerry's Jewish ancestors visit him in every dream, from this day forward. nHe is on his own re-learning geography, e.g. Far East. Where is that? Beyond the Middle East? Next to the Near East? South of the Central East?
So that would leave Israel off the danger list as a R2P target? n nWell, maybe not.
besht: I almost wrote that R2P was some people's (all the pal-lovers including Samantha Power) tactic to use against Israel. n nThe real problem is this belief in linkage: solve the I/P conflict and all muslims will be as peaceful as rainbows. Jeffrey Goldberg re-posted his Bloomberg piece at The Atlantic today, but his point that linkage is a false theory is still not getting any echo, yet. n nCommentary is too obsessed with the Defense budget cuts to even try to understand what is actually happening with Obama's term2 team. The writers here seem to forget that we had to add soldiers and Marines for the ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. n nThe real problem is that Obama's new team is determined to force the 2002 Saudi peace plan on Israel. They just need to wait for Egypt and Syria to return to stability, which, imo, will NOT be anytime soon. n nMaybe the writers here are just finding ways to kill time so they can stop stressing over the Netanyahu's coalition negotiations.
looks like the Israeli coalition will balance itself out with Lapid in or out of the government; & with Livni in or out or Shas in or out there will be precious little leverage inside the coalition to force Bibi to give up rights to the west of the Jordan faster than he is prepared to go. As the Plan calls for total Israeli withdrawal to the Green line plus negotiations over how many refugee descendants, distant cousins, and key holders will receive deed titles within Israel or compensation no government of Israel that's conceivable will accept it. Obama won't have a stalking horse.
what with Lapid's public musings since the election, I was wondering if the other five Hatnua MKs could go back to Kadima or Likud without Livni, or whether changing party requires a new election. Just wish Lapid and Livni would put Israel first instead of trying to undermine Netanyahu. Or maybe neither wants to be Foreign Minister to Kerry, who has announced his first trip is to Egypt, Israel, not necessarily in that order. nJust that I see Obama's new trio all being supportive of what seems to be a policy of favoring a Sunni arc, and Kerry has eight years of his imaginary presidency that could have been to now play out. n n
Mandel: "Sharp, independent, and tough Rice." ??? Is Mandel going to now open a Susan Rice fan club at Commentary? Perhaps Mandel can tell us which of these 3 great qualities Rice exhibited when she intentionally boycotted Netanyahu's autumn UN speech? Or when immediately after voting against Fakistinian statehood two years ago in the UN, she launched a viciously gratuitous attack against Israel, blaming it for the failed peace process in the region and savaging Israelis who have the temerity to live in the land that has been theirs for more than 3000 years. Perhaps Mandel should find seek work where the readership will have more sympathy for his fawning over Hussein's "let peace be upon him" sycophants.
Rice is out of the picture. It's now safe to hold her up as a paragon.
Susan Rice continues to serve as the US ambassador to the United Nations where she can vent in that nasty tone at every security Council vote on Israel that she has to make. n nUnless she has secretly decided to retire so she can spend all those millions she has.
or her fiercely independent verbatim reading of Benghazi talking points for the Sunday shows because maybe fierce maybe independent but certainly more self-protective Ms. Clinton had to do her hair that morning.
"Obama, it seems, was tired of being challenged for his inaction…." n nYeah, he just couldn't get anything done after wrapping up the Iraq war and passing a national healthcare act — the first after more than a hundred years of trying by various presidents. n nAs for the sequestration, it wouldn't be a problem if the GOP stopped playing games with the debt ceiling and threatening the US and world economy.
as far as foreign affairs go HillelA any army can *retreat*–by your definition the French were a little beehive of activity in 1940. They wrapped up that war in a hurry This old pooch doesn't object to an Iraqi (or Afghani ) bug out for now . Still when employing Sen. Aiken's strategy of declaring victory and going home, the first part is the window dressing. The national healthcare act is already bleeding red ink as the initial cost projections go sideways and it may or may not be able to be implemented across state exchanges. The connection between sequestration and the GOP is inexplicable as it was the President's idea to begin with and appears to be the lynchpin of his plans to reduce the Pentagon budget. That's his baby not the GOP's. They just stupidly signed on to it. And profligately raising the debt ceiling and doubling down on government debt, accounted for and hidden in the ponzi rules of government accounting remains the single biggest threat to American national security. Trust us–every penny saved on the Pentagon will turn into a quarter spent out the back door And there is as yet absolutely no evidence that the GOP will stand up for fiscal sanity. We will continue to spend like drunken sailors on shore leave, until the inevitable morning after the night before.
"Michael row de boat ashore, hallelujah,. Michael row de boat…….." n I like your style besht.
Let's just take a look at the last five Sec. of State: 1) Madelaine Albright,2) Colin Powell, 3) Condoleeza Rice, 4) Hillary Clinton, 5) Kerry. Now, in that list you've got a little bit of everything. Just plain old-fashioned dumb: Candy & Albright. Political hack: Powell & Clinton. Self-important poser: Kerry. Not one deep, well-thought out , international geo-strategic thought among the lot of them. Is it any wonder America's international standing and prestige has been steadily declining over the past 20 years? n And why hasn't one of them, even one, bothered to gain a knowledge of, and understanding of, the menace and threat Islam poses to the West, and how best to implement policies that would protect the Western world from the depredations of this monstrous cult? Forgive me , but I write in the style of Hugh Fitzgerald because he is my hero- imitation being the highest form of flattery.
Because no one really wants to deal with the "real issues" that we face. I guess we will wait until we are hit again, which AQ says is coming, before start looking at the real issues.