Either Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is working against
the Trump agenda or he is not competent enough to drain the State Department
Obama hold-over swamp. I believe it is the former more than the latter. Either
way, President Trump needs to fire Tillerson and get a Secretary of State that
can competently execute the Trump agenda in foreign policy. ESPECIALLY as
pertaining to Israel!
JRH 9/18/17
****************
State Department Waging "Open War" on White
House
By Soeren Kern
September 17, 2017 at 5:00 am
§ "It's not clear to me why the Secretary of State wishes
to at once usurp the powers of the Congress and then to derail his boss's
rapprochement with the Israeli government." — Foreign policy operative,
quoted in the Washington Free Beacon.
§ Since he was sworn in as Secretary of State on February 1,
Rex Tillerson and his advisors at the State Department have made a number of
statements and policy decisions that contradict President Trump's key campaign
promises on foreign policy, especially regarding Israel and Iran.
§ "Tillerson was supposed to clean house, but he left half
of them in place and he hid the other half in powerful positions all over the
building. These are career staffers committed to preventing Trump from reversing
what they created." — Veteran foreign policy analyst, quoted in the Free
Beacon.
The U.S. State Department has backed away from
a demand that Israel return $75 million in military aid which was allocated to
it by the U.S. Congress.
The repayment demand, championed by
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, was described as
an underhanded attempt by the State Department to derail a campaign pledge by
U.S. President Donald J. Trump to improve relations with the Jewish state.
The dispute is the just the latest example of what appears
to be a growing power struggle between the State Department and the White House
over the future direction of American foreign policy.
The controversy goes back to the Obama administration's
September 2016 Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU) with Israel, which pledged $38 billion in
military assistance to Jerusalem over the next decade. The MOU expressly
prohibits Israel from requesting additional financial aid from Congress.
Congressional leaders, who said the MOU violates the
constitutional right of lawmakers to allocate U.S. aid, awarded Israel an
additional $75 million in assistance in the final appropriations bill for
fiscal year 2017.
Tillerson had argued that Israel should return the $75
million in order to stay within the limits established by the Obama
administration. The effort provoked a strong reaction from Congress, which
apparently prompted Tillerson to back down.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) "strongly warned the State Department
that such action would be unwise and invite unwanted conflict with
Israel," according to
the Washington Free Beacon.
Speaking to the Washington Examiner, Rep. Peter
Roskam (R-IL) added:
"As Iran works to surround
Israel on every border, and Hezbollah and Hamas rearm, we must work to
strengthen our alliance with Israel, not strain it. Congress has the right to
allocate money as it deems necessary, and security assistance to Israel is a
top priority. Congress is ready to ensure Israel receives the assistance it
needs to defend its citizens."
A veteran congressional advisor told the Free
Beacon:
"This is a transparent attempt
by career staffers in the State Department to f*ck with the Israelis and derail
the efforts of Congressional Republicans and President Trump to rebuild the
US-Israel relationship. There's no reason to push for the Israelis to return
the money, unless you're trying to drive a wedge between Israel and Congress,
which is exactly what this is. It won't work."
Another foreign policy operative said:
"It's not clear to me why the Secretary of State wishes to at once usurp
the powers of the Congress and then to derail his boss's rapprochement with the
Israeli government."
Secretary of
State Rex Tillerson (left) and President Donald J. Trump (right) on February 1,
2017. (Image source: Michael
Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images)
Since he was sworn in as Secretary of State on February 1,
Tillerson and his advisors at the State Department have made a number of
statements and policy decisions that contradict Trump's key campaign promises
on foreign policy, especially regarding Israel and Iran.
August 10. The State Department hosted representatives
of the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), an umbrella group
established by the Muslim Brotherhood with the aim of mainstreaming political
Islam in the United States. Behind closed doors, they reportedly discussed what
they said was Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine and the removal of all
Israeli control of the Temple Mount and holy areas of Jerusalem.
Observers said the
meeting was part of larger effort by anti-Israel organizations to drive a wedge
between the Trump administration and Israel. The USCMO includes a number of
organizations, including American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), which promote "extreme
anti-Israel views" and "anti-Zionist" propaganda, and which
support boycotts of the Jewish state.
July 19. The State Department's new
"Country Reports on Terrorism 2016" blamed Israel for
Palestinian Arab terrorism against Jews. It attributed Palestinian violence to:
"lack of hope in achieving statehood;" "Israeli settlement
construction in the West Bank;" "settler violence;" and
"the perception that the Israeli government was changing the status quo on
the Haram Al Sharif/Temple Mount." The report also characterized
Palestinian Authority payments to the families of so-called martyrs as
"financial packages to Palestinian security prisoners...to reintegrate
them into society."
Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) called on
the State Department to hold the PA accountable in State Department Country
reports: "The State Department report includes multiple findings that are
both inaccurate and harmful to combating Palestinian terrorism.... At the
highest level, the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership incites, rewards, and,
in some cases, carries out terrorist attacks against innocent Israelis. In
order to effectively combat terrorism, it is imperative that the United States
accurately characterize its root cause — PA leadership."
June 14. Tillerson voiced opposition to
designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, saying that
such a classification would complicate Washington's relations in the Middle
East. During his confirmation hearings on January 11, by contrast, Tillerson
lumped the Brotherhood with al-Qaeda when talking about militant threats in the
region. He said:
"Eliminating ISIS would be the
first step in disrupting the capabilities of other groups and individuals
committed to striking our homeland and our allies. The demise of ISIS would
also allow us to increase our attention on other agents of radical Islam like
al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and certain elements within Iran."
June 13. During testimony to the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, Tillerson said he
had received reassurances from President Mahmoud Abbas that the Palestinian
Authority would end the practice of paying a monthly stipend to the families of
suicide bombers and other attackers, commonly referred to by Palestinians as
martyrs. One day later, Palestinian officials contradicted Tillerson, saying
that there are no plans to stop payments to families of Palestinians killed or
wounded carrying out attacks against Israelis.
May 22. Tillerson sidestepped questions
on whether the Western Wall is part of Israel, while telling reporters aboard
Air Force One they were heading to "Tel Aviv, home of Judaism." Asked
directly whether he considers the Western Wall under Israeli sovereignty,
Tillerson replied: "The wall is part of Jerusalem."
May 15. In an interview with Meet the Press,
Tillerson appeared publicly to renege on
Trump's campaign promise to move the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv
to Jerusalem:
"The president, I think
rightly, has taken a very deliberative approach to understanding the issue
itself, listening to input from all interested parties in the region, and
understanding what such a move, in the context of a peace initiative, what
impact would such a move have."
Tillerson also appeared to equate
the State of Israel and the Palestinians:
"As you know, the president
has recently expressed his view that he wants to put a lot of effort into
seeing if we cannot advance a peace initiative between Israel and Palestine.
And so I think in large measure the president is being very careful to
understand how such a decision would impact a peace process."
Critics of this stance have argued that
moving the embassy to Jerusalem would, instead, advance the peace process by
"shattering the Palestinian fantasy that Jerusalem is not the capital of
Israel."
March 8. The State Department confirmed that the Obama
administration's $221 million payment to the Palestinian Authority, approved
just hours before Trump's inauguration, had reached its destination. The Trump
administration initially had vowed to freeze the payment.
In July 2017, the Free Beacon reported that
Tillerson's State Department was waging an "open political war" with
the White House on a range of key issues, including the U.S.-Israel
relationship, the Iran portfolio, and other matters:
"The tensions have fueled an
outstanding power battle between the West Wing and State Department that has
handicapped the administration and resulted in scores of open positions failing
to be filled with Trump confidantes. This has allowed former Obama administration
appointees still at the State Department to continue running the show and
formulating policy, where they have increasingly clashed with the White House's
own agenda."
A veteran foreign policy analyst interviewed by the Free
Beacon laid the blame squarely
on Tillerson:
"Foggy Bottom [a metonym for
the State Department] is still run by the same people who designed and
implemented Obama's Middle East agenda. Tillerson was supposed to clean house,
but he left half of them in place and he hid the other half in powerful
positions all over the building. These are career staffers committed to
preventing Trump from reversing what they created."
Notable holdovers from the Obama administration are now
driving the State Department's Iran policy:
Michael Ratney,
a top advisor to former Secretary of State John Kerry on Syria policy. Under
the Trump administration, Ratney's role at the State Department has been expanded to include Israel
and Palestine issues. Ratney, who was the U.S. Consul in Jerusalem between 2012
and 2015, oversaw $465,000 in U.S. grants to wage a smear to oust Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from office in 2015 parliamentary elections, according to
the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Ratney admitted to Senate
investigators that he deleted emails containing information about the Obama
administration's relationship with the group.
Thomas A. Shannon, Jr.,
a career foreign service officer who serves as Under Secretary of State for
Political Affairs. Shannon, the State Department's fourth-ranking official,
has warned that
scrapping the Iran deal would lead to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
"Any effort to step away from the deal would reopen a Pandora's box in
that region that would be hard to close again," he said. His statement
indicates that Shannon could be expected to lead efforts to resist any attempts
to renege or renegotiate the deal; critics of the deal say that Iran's continued
missile testing has given Trump one more reason to tear up his predecessor's
deal with the Islamist regime.
Chris Backemeyer is now
the highest-ranking official at the State Department for Iran policy. During
the Obama administration, Backemeyer made his career by selling the Iran deal
by persuading multinational corporations to do business with Iran as part of an
effort to conclude the Iran nuclear deal.
Ratney, Shannon and Backemeyer, along with Tillerson,
reportedly prevailed upon Trump twice to recertify the Iran nuclear deal.
The Jerusalem Post explained:
Washington was briefly abuzz on the
afternoon of July 17 when rumors began to circulate that President Trump was
eager to declare that Iran was in breach of the conditions laid out in the 2015
Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA).
Those receptive antennas were
further heightened given the previous signals sent. After all, the State
Department already released talking points to reporters on the decision to recertify
Iran. The Treasury Department also had a package of fresh sanctions on over a
dozen Iranian individuals and entities ready to announce to appease the hawks
who were eager to cut loose from the deal.
But Trump didn't want to recertify
Iran, nor did he want to the last time around in April. That evening, a
longtime Middle East analyst close to senior White House officials involved in
the discussions described the scene to me: "Tillerson essentially told the
president, 'we just aren't ready with our allies to decertify.' The president
retorted, 'Isn't it your job to get our allies ready?' to which Tillerson said,
'Sorry sir, we're just not ready.'" According to this source, Secretary
Tillerson pulled the same maneuver when it came to recertification in April by
waiting until the last minute before finally admitting the State Department
wasn't ready. On both occasions he simply offered something to the effect of,
"We'll get 'em next time."
______________________
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