FULL QUOTE:
"He
stabbed both Israel and the moderate Arab states in the back by
publicly accepting the terms of a weak nuclear deal with Iran that would
have likely started the collapse of sanctions against Tehran and put in
motion a process that would have made it possible for the Islamist
state to reach their nuclear goal. He
then added to that folly by rushing to Geneva to sign that agreement
only to be embarrassed by the insistence of the French—of all countries—that
there at least be a fig leaf of accountability for the arrangement.
That blew up the P5+1 talks and left Kerry trying to explain both his
appeasement and the failure while also obviously fibbing about the
last-minute conditions being his idea rather than the brainchild of
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. It must be admitted that to have
done so much damage to American interests in so little time is quite an
accomplishment. Though
he has plenty of competition for the title, John Kerry may have already
become America’s worst secretary of state in history."
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During
his first term in office, President Obama was criticized by
conservatives for conducting what they dubbed apology tours in which he
always seemed to find something in American history for which he felt
compelled to make amends. To his surprise, neither apologies nor the
magic of his personality and historic status were able to conceal the
fact that he was far better at alienating America’s traditional allies
than winning new friends. But as awkward as the president proved to be
at diplomacy, even that experience did not prepare the world for John
Kerry. In less than a year, he has not only already repeated these
mistakes but also exceeded them. Currently on yet another apology tour
of his own in the Middle East, where he is desperately trying to
reassure moderate Arab countries that he has not sold them down the
river in his vain quest for a nuclear deal with Iran, American prestige
and trust in Washington’s word are at a low point in recent history.
In
just the last week, Kerry has personally exacerbated tensions between
Israel and the Palestinians that were already complicated by his lust
for a peace deal that no one else thought possible.
He stabbed both Israel and the moderate Arab states in the back by
publicly accepting the terms of a weak nuclear deal with Iran that would
have likely started the collapse of sanctions against Tehran and put in
motion a process that would have made it possible for the Islamist
state to reach their nuclear goal. He then added to that folly by
rushing to Geneva to sign that agreement only to be embarrassed by the
insistence of the French—of all countries—that there at least be a fig
leaf of accountability for the arrangement. That blew up the P5+1 talks
and left Kerry trying to explain both his appeasement and the failure
while also obviously fibbing about the last-minute conditions being his
idea rather than the brainchild of French Foreign Minister Laurent
Fabius. It must be admitted that to have done so much damage to American
interests in so little time is quite an accomplishment. Though he has
plenty of competition for the title, John Kerry may have already become
America’s worst secretary of state in history.
Some
observers are wondering today whether Kerry’s decision to essentially
recognize Iran’s “right” to refine uranium and his reluctance to include
Iran’s plutonium nuclear plans in the proposed agreement will
complicate the Middle East peace process that he has spent so much
effort promoting. But to claim that America’s decision to prioritize
détente with Iran over its obligation to allies will make it harder for
an agreement to be reached between Israel and the Palestinians. But
those who are making this argument are misreading the situation.
Israelis are understandably aggrieved about a U.S. policy shift that
seems to have accepted Iran’s nuclear program as a fait accompli. But
the peace talks were already a disaster before Kerry further alienated
Israelis and moderate Arabs over his failed attempt to appease Iran. It
was possible to argue that a strong American stand on Iran could have
made Israel feel more comfortable making more concessions to the
Palestinians. But even before he had announced his betrayal on Iran,
Kerry vented his spleen about the standoff against Israel in a way that
made no secret of his belief that only they were to blame for the
failure of his idea. Having forced both parties into talks that were
clearly fated to fail due to the division among Palestinians and their
obvious unwillingness to accept statehood on generous terms that they’ve
already rejected three times, Kerry can’t own up to the fact that his
idea never had a chance and thus prefers to blame Israel for his own
errors.
The problem here is twofold.
The
first is Kerry’s exalted vision of his own diplomatic skills. As soon
he was sworn in, he threw caution to the winds and embarked on a course
that a wiser man would have understood was merely a repeat of the
mistakes of the past. Better men and more skillful diplomats than Kerry
have failed under more propitious circumstances than the current
situation, in which Hamas rules Gaza and a weak and fearful Fatah holds
onto the West Bank only with the help of Israel. But Kerry’s hubris is
such that he appears to be genuinely shocked by the apparent failure of
his initiative and is now lashing out wildly and going so far as to
threaten Israel with more Palestinian violence if Prime Minister
Netanyahu does not bend to his will.
That
flaw in Kerry’s makeup is compounded by another fatal shortcoming in a
diplomat: his naked zeal for the deal. The Iranians have read him
perfectly and found it possible to get the West to come much closer to
their position on their right to enrich uranium without having to budge
an inch. If Tehran’s envoys refused to accede to France’s reasonable
concerns it was because they believe Kerry and President Obama will
eventually cave in to their demands just as they’ve moved off of their
previous insistence that sanctions will not be weakened.
All
this was bad enough, but the ham-handed way Kerry’s has barged around
the Middle East making enemies was made even more foolish looking by
Kerry’s lame post-Geneva explanations for his behavior. That he did all
this only months after presiding over the administration’s disastrous
retreat on Syria and the collapse of its influence in Egypt on his watch
renders his recent tenure one of the most disastrous in modern American
history.
Kerry’s
conduct must even have the White House starting to rethink the decision
to give him the freedom to carry out his plans. Though his predecessor
Hillary Clinton’s accomplishments in her four years at Foggy Bottom were
slim (other, that is, than racking up frequent flier miles), right now
she is starting to look like a foreign-policy giant by comparison. The
only question now is whether at some point President Obama will have to
step up and rein in Kerry before he does his already troubled second
term the kind of damage that will not only harm America’s standing
abroad but hurt it at home.
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