Rex Tillerson: That's All Folks!
Rex Tillerson never seemed to realize that he had reached his Peter Principle threshold the moment he took the oath to protect and defend the Constitution and to destroy the State Department (the latter was an add-on from the White House). It took another supreme incompetent, Donald Trump, to tweet him into oblivion. "Thank you for your service. Now empty your desk and get the hell out!"
The "Tillerson Era" - all of twelve months and forty-one days - will rival in the history books that of the utterly forgettable William Rogers, the Secretary of State of the last aborted president, Richard Nixon. Known popularly as "Secretary of the Links" for spending much of his time golfing, oblivious as Nixon and Kissinger ran foreign policy from the White House, Rogers' most memorable public utterance was, "Making foreign policy is like pornographic movies…more fun doing it than watching it." Unsurprisingly, there are no biographies on our fifty-fifth secretary of state. And Tillerson shouldn't be anticipating any either.
His longest official statement is his farewell address, weighing in at a hefty 1132 words. It's a rambling unfocused statement most noted for being devoid of citing any successes during his tenure.
Tillerson saw his job mainly as the hatchet man for Donald Trump, whose Kremlin orders list demolishing the State Department as a top priority. First goal on the agenda was to slash the department by 30 percent. Congress balked. Even GOP xenophobes who have as much use for diplomacy and the eggheads who practice it as plutonium in their breakfast cereal. No problem. The White House simply refused to fill senior positions. As morale reached depths where even transparent invertebrates cannot survive, scores of Foreign Service officers and Civil Service staff have fled, facing a brick wall in their careers and forced to defend policies that von Ribbentrop would be comfortable with.
“Morale is not necessarily low because we fear for our jobs. It is low because we fear for our country,” a senior diplomat with 30-plus years in the Foreign Service told me. “We see what can happen and it terrifies many of us,” he continued. “We are entering uncharted and rather scary territory. Trump’s policies fly in the face of norms that have been respected by Republican and Democratic administrations since World War II and before. Free trade. Honoring commitments. Supporting our allies in exchange for the guarantee of their support. Seeking the moral high ground. Respect for human rights. Ascribing value to the contributions of immigrants. Providing haven to those in danger. Those elements built the foundation of America’s greatness. Without them, America has no leverage in any negotiation. We have lost the moral high ground.”
Another veteran diplomat choosing early retirement confided, “I just simply cannot be a part of normalizing an administration headed by a man who is so clearly lacking in the requisite seriousness, integrity, judgment, character, intellect, and commitment to democratic values. He appears uninterested and incapable of building the trust with foreign counterparts that is so necessary for the successful conduct of American diplomacy. And I have zero confidence that a self-involved and unprincipled Trump administration will adequately safeguard American personnel and facilities overseas.”
Others contacted me with similar laments. A Foreign Service veteran headed to Kabul debated whether to quit now. I counseled her to stick it out. Another chose to pull the plug mid-career and seek a job with an NGO working on human rights. A close pal, who is a senior FSO, told me he was seeking cover in a low-profile position, hoping to wait out the catastrophe that is the Trump administration. Not since the McCarthy communist witch hunt era has our foreign policy agency suffered such deep and certainly lasting damage.
Tillerson will be forgotten overnight, remembered by future wonks as the guy his president constantly undercut and embarrassed and who referred to his president as a "moron." In other words, a faded footnote in dry college textbooks on diplomacy.
His successor, Mike Pompeo, is an odd duck. First in his West Point graduating class, a Harvard law grad and career army officer prior to getting into politics, Pompeo clearly is smart. But he also displays intimations of whackadoodlism. He opposes the Iran nuclear deal, wants to launch B-52s and cruise missiles into Kim Jong-un's nightly cheese plate and otherwise parrots Donald Trump's meandering brain farts on Make America Great Again. Better dust up and re-stock those 1950s bomb shelters folks.
In an administration increasingly purging itself of stolid foreign policy pros like John Kelly and H.R. McMaster - and even level-headed amateurs like Tillerson, we look at dangerous times ahead. The danger will be compounded should Trump appoint the strangelovean figure John Bolton as his national security advisor. It's Looney Tunes times, folks. Bugs Bunny may have called it right: "Of course, you know this means war!"