Tillerson will be working for Trump (who is working for us).
He doesn’t have to be ideologically pure.
I don’t care if he’s as confused as Hank Rearden.
He has the skills. And Trump thinks he’ll do.
Sorry, Tillerson doesn’t have the “skills”. He’s got no experience dealing with statecraft. Nobody in Trump’s inner circle does as far as I can tell. Tillerson, Flynn, Little Jared, etc. None experienced in the foreign policy jiu-jitsu that Putin specializes in. Putin is going to play Team Trump like a fiddle by keeping things on a low boil. And anybody who is not a Trump is always righter can see this train wreck coming.
And anybody who is not a Trump is always righter can see this train wreck coming.
Oy.
Are you saying that the last few administrations had people skilled in statecraft? Were they successful? Are we as a nation, or the world, better off? Looks like you have bought into the idea that only a politician who has lived in a theory bubble all his life can get anything done.
John Kerry has skills in statecraft?
LOL. We have an army of career bureaucrats in all 17 foreign affairs agencies that will be doing the heavy lifting in terms of foreign policy. Flynn as head of DIA has plenty of foreign policy experience. Only 20% of the Americans stationed at our diplomatic posts abroad work for the State Department.
The real power in formulation our foreign policy lies in the NSC, which is staffed primarily by career personnel. And then we have Mattis as SecDef, which is a major player in formulating foreign policy.
The players at the top change with administrations, but our national interests don't nor do the vast majority of career personnel in government involved in foreign policy change. NSA and the other intelligence agencies will still be feeding information to the political hierarchy. The thin veneer of political appointees at the top of the bureaucracy can affect emphasis on certain areas, but our basic foreign policy will not change. The importance/danger of the Tillerson appointment is way overblown.
As I observed in another thread,
Exxon is bigger than a lot of countries.
And Tillerson didn’t get where he is because his father left it to him.
He is the head of a virtual state, and an oil “state” at that.
I’d say that makes him experienced and qualified, well beyond most men.
He's met with countless heads of states to negotiate deals for Exxon. That gives him more skills for the job than most SOS that have served the country.
As if statecraft has gotten us anywhere
That’s rich. The wonderful diplomats who have presided over the destabilization of the middle east have the expertise only experience can bring. Snicker.
Statescraft is the business of Nations, cutthroat, duplicitous, plots within plots. Tillerson’s experience will be perfect preparation and it’s actual experience not the posturing of Washington mountebanks.