Ping to # 28 , and check out # 29 as well.
Thanks, MinuteGal.
Posted on 03/17/2017 8:23:40 AM PDT by MarvinStinson
President Trump fancies himself the new Andrew Jackson. But did Jackson allow holdovers from John Quincy Adams’ administration to guide his foreign policy?
I raise the question because of reports that architects of some of President Obama’s worst foreign policies are making policy at Trump’s State Department.
Let’s first consider the case of Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, the Iran director for former President Obama’s National Security Council. According to Jordan Schachtel of Conservative Review, Ms. Nowrouzzadeh “has burrowed into the government under President Trump” and “is now in charge of Iran and the Persian Gulf region on the policy planning staff at the State Department.”
Schachtel tells us that Nowrouzzadeh is a former employee of the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC), a non-profit that is accused of being a lobbying group for the Iranian regime. NIAC’s current president, the odious Trita Parsi, has long held close relationships with top officials in the Tehran dictatorship. In February, a group of over 100 prominent Iranian dissidents called for Congress to investigate NIAC’s ties to the Iranian regime.
According to Schachtel, Nowrouzzadeh had a big hand in the Iran nuclear deal, which Trump repeatedly has called “a disaster.” Indeed, says Schachtel, “one of Nowrouzzadeh’s primary duties under President Obama was to promote initiatives that pushed the Iran deal.”
She fulfilled this duty with aplomb. According to the head of a state-run Iranian newspaper, Nowrouzzadeh was an essential element to pushing through the Iran deal. Editor-in-Chief Emad Abshenass said that she opened up a direct line of communication with the Iranian president’s brother. “She helped clear a number of contradictions and allowed the entire endeavor to succeed,” Abshenass said of her efforts.
Asked by Schachtel why Secretary Tillerson was retaining Nowrouzzadeh, the State Department did not respond.
Next, consider the case of Brett McGurk. He held various high level positions in the Obama administration (as well as Bush administration), most recently the job of Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL (known outside of the Obama bubble as ISIS).
McGurk was an odd choice to lead a global coalition against ISIS. Lee Smith writes:
One of the main reasons Obama’s ISIS policy failed was because Sunni actors refused to engage in an intramural civil war whose spoils would go to the Iranians and their Shia allies. McGurk was the point man on this pro-Iran policy, famously arranging for Iran to get $400 million in cash delivered on wooden pallets to the IRGC in exchange for American hostages.
It gets worse:
Remember when the Trump administration promised to make public the secret agreements that Obama made with Iran? McGurk signed some of the secret documents, relieving sanctions on a key financial hub of Iran’s ballistic-missile program, and dropping charges against 21 Iranian operatives linked to terrorism. Notably, none of those documents has actually been made public.
Maybe that’s because McGurk’s name is on them, or maybe it’s because former National Iranian American Council staffer Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, Obama’s NSC director for Iran, is now on the policy-planning staff in Trump’s State Department. The Iran Deal seems like even more of a done deal with every new ballistic-missile test.
Smith identifies more Obama administration stalwarts with key policy-making roles under Trump/Tillerson:
Syria is another area where the Trump White House is now appointing the same people to carry out the same policies that made America great under Obama. The Obama State Department’s special envoy to Syria, Michael Ratney, threatened the Syrian rebels on behalf of Vladimir Putin—if you do not adhere to the phony Cessation of Hostilities agreement that neither Bashar al-Assad, Tehran, nor Moscow will obey, you will legitimize Russian air strikes against you, with American diplomatic support.
Under Trump, Ratney’s role has expanded; in addition to Syria, he is also handling Israel and Palestine issues.
Other notable figures the Trump team kept on include the State Department’s Tom Shannon, whom Kerry dispatched to do damage control once it got out that the Obama administration was trying to give Iran access to the dollar.
Chris Backemeyer, the State Department’s principal deputy coordinator for sanctions policy, is still there, too. His job under Obama was to persuade companies around the world to invest in Iran, despite their wariness of the next administration reimposing sanctions or tearing up the deal.
President Trump may eventually get around to replacing some of these holdovers. As we have observed, however, he seems to be proceeding at a snail’s pace. Smith attributes the delay to conflicts within Trump-world among factions “more devoted to destroying each other than to achieving anything concrete with the power of the office they swore to serve.”
Whatever its cause, the presence of the Obama holdovers portends trouble. Says Smith:
While the Trump cabinet is at daggers drawn, while it can’t hire the staff to implement the policies the president campaigned on—to destroy ISIS, to reign in Iran and crash the nuclear deal, to protect American citizens and interests, and to realign with allies like Israel that Obama made vulnerable—there are much more decisive and deadly conflicts going on almost everywhere around the world. The people who are handling key elements of those conflicts now are the same people who handled those areas under Obama, despite the results of the last election.
Andrew Jackson wouldn’t have tolerated this mess.
I donn’t know, hat do you think? It’s two months now. I couldn’t be LESS of an expert on how transitions go.
Is this a very long time?
Anybody have any ideas?
Same question I have:
I couldn’t be LESS of an expert on how transitions go.
Is this a very long time?
Also we are not privy to every going on at the WH. Maybe the writer is. /s
True dat.
Praying St Patty is helping to drive all of the SNAKES out of DC!!!
I don’t like the new head (entrenched) bureaucrat of the VA and I am extremely confused as to why Koskinen is still at the IRS.
If this article is correct, Trump is over looking these people because he is getting very bad advise or he doesn’t see it as a priority.
I was hoping you’d know :)
The 3 billion for Israel even after the yuge cuts in giving to other countries is a good sign overall, though.
True dat. What am I on urban.com :)
I like it though. Might start using it.
(...OR WHY THE STATE DEPARTMENT SWAMP MUST BE TOTALLY DRAINED!)
At this very moment, I have in my hot little hand a published "Declaration of Support for Barack Obama" (dated 9-15-08) signed with the names of 292 State Department retirees.
It begins: "We are a diverse group of 292 Foreign Service officers. Each of us has had extensive experience implementing the international affairs and national security policies of both Democrat and Republican administrations.
"We urge Americans to select as our next president Senator Barack Obama, a leader with courage, intelligence, a fresh perspective and a focus on the future. He has the judgement and the vision to set our nation on the path to a better future."
(There are more glowing paragraphs to follow which I will not reproduce here).
The State Department is the SWAMPIEST of the departments and agencies in the D.C. Swamp. Since the days of spy Alger Hiss and even before, State has been a morass of anti-American, pro-Arabism, anti-Semitism, globalism, socialism, marxism and other "isms" I can't even think of at the moment.
I know where-of I speak...a close personal friend of mine was career State in the DC economic division building. Over many years he kept me clued in on the alien activities, philosophies and policy-formulations constantly swirling around him.
In addition, I was in email correspondence for years with a since-deceased career foreign officer who was stationed in American embassies in Italy, the Hague, France, North Africa, even Thailand during his long tenure.
His emails to me, while fascinating and well-written were often riddled with phrases such as "American imperialism" and other jargons of the Left which were subtly embedded in his correspondence...and which jargon is still employed to this day by those connected with State.
My left-wing email correspondent just happened to be my second cousin via an east coast liberal branch of our family.
I'm looking at his name on the list of the 292 Obama supporters as I type.
As they say, you can pick your pew...but not your relatives.
Leni/Minutegal
Transitions hardly ever have gone "smoothly"; especially NOT in your lifetime.
Obama had Jarrett, who stuffed the government with her "proteges"....especially in newly minted "CZAR" positions. It's what COMMIES do.
W used lots of his father's old pals, in positions.
The two examples, above, are more unusual than the norm.
LBJ, who had been on politics all of his life, kept most of JFK's totally USELESS people, instead of installing hios own people.
Ping to # 28 , and check out # 29 as well.
Thanks, MinuteGal.
They need to get fired ASAP!
Good evening.
I hope you are doing well.
All I can say is that other retired State Department personnel I have spoken with would agree with your post.
5.56mm
Is it possible that he wants them in place when he has them arrested instead of everybody asking why are they arresting this or that guy now that he’s out of office anyway?
I DO want to see them arrested!
Trump is really a bad President.After all he's been there for over 50 days almost two months and he hasn't cured all the problems of the country yet that it took obama eight years to destroy.
They shut up after that.
Ha—well put.
Dont talk to me about retired State experts defending their years of experience! They have made an almost irreparable mess of the world!
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