Tillerson's Glacial Pace & Micromanagement Result in Bureaucratic Constipation
This man could use some relief...
...and here it is!
As a lowly desk officer at the State Department, I shared with many equally obscure colleagues the unenviable task of drafting "national day greetings" to other governments. These were pro forma, mind-numbing, yet required, exercises - the diplomatic equivalent of sending a birthday card to one's grandma.
On behalf of the President and the American people, the government of the United States extends to the government and people of the People's Ephemeral Republic of Bumfukistan warmest salutations on the occasion of the thirty-seventh anniversary of the Revolution of the Golden Horde and looks forward to continuation of friendly relations between our two nations.
...a typical such message would be worded.
The message, often with a few edits, would routinely wend its way through the mid-level chain of command and ultimately be approved for transmittal by someone in the lower senior ranks - and then forgotten. This type of ritualistic wheel-spinning is merely one archaic element of the tradition of diplomacy bequeathed to the world by Renaissance Medici princes and courtiers of the royal French court (before their heads came off under Robespierre, that is).
The New York Times reports that "now the messages go through Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson’s office, where his top assistants insist on vetting them, and where they often sit for weeks before coming back with extensive editing changes."
Meantime, Kim Jong-un madly lobs missiles over the Sea of Japan, Russian president Vladimir Putin and his gaggle of gangster-spies concoct yet more devilish pranks to sabotage western democracies and Venezuela burns, burns, burns - as the United States wallows in a strategic vacuum. Rather than convene an interagency task force to formulate policy options for our so-called president, Rex Tillerson obsesses over dotted "i's" and crossed "t's" in the national day greetings to Bumfukistan.
Ah, but it gets better!
The Times reports, "In another example of just how much Mr. Tillerson is sweating the details, he recently insisted that his staff members submit a memorandum justifying each proposed hiring of a diplomatic spouse in the embassies in Baghdad and Kabul, Afghanistan... Mr. Tillerson personally reviewed the necessity for every one of those jobs."
Say what?! This is as if JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon insisted on personally reviewing and approving or disapproving the hiring of every receptionist in his bank's vast structure.
To make State's bureaucratic constipation complete, Secretary Tillerson "revoked or put under review all of {newly appointed Deputy Secretary John} Sullivan’s decision-making powers as well as those of all the other senior leaders in the department." (What senior leaders?)
And this guy ran the world's largest publicly traded oil and gas company?
At the present time some three dozen of the department's top positions remain unfilled and scores of ambassadorships are vacant.
The ostensible reason behind this purposeful clogging of the bureaucratic bowels is a pending reorganization. Call me cynical, but this all appears to be part of a concerted effort by a vindictive president peeved at State employees' acts of defiance against the Muslim ban, leaving the Paris Climate Accord and other such genius policy moves ginned up by the Bannon/Miller Sturmabteilung cadre to methodically dismantle and sell off in a weekend garage sale this nation's first executive agency. But equally plausible in this administration by the Gang That Can't Rule Straight could just be gross incompetence. Trumpcare anyone?
When all is said and done, this country will not only lack a foreign policy, but also the professionals required to carry one out.
At least the government and people of Bumfukistan will be happy.