Tillerson Out, and Pompeo In as Secretary of State
Of all the cabinet-level appointees of the President of the United States, none is more important, nor carries more prestige, than the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State is the very face of the president to the world at large and is the nation’s chief diplomat in all things external to the United States. The Secretary of State is the U.S. equivalent of a Minister of Foreign Affairs, in parliamentary systems of government, and even in the United States with its representative republic, the position was originally known as the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, from 1781 to 1789.
Robert Livingston was the nation’s first Secretary of Foreign Affairs, before he was replaced by John Jay, who went on to become acting Secretary of State prior to the first actual Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson. Since Jefferson, sixty-nine Secretaries of State have held the position, either as acting or formally installed, and no fewer than six of the first seventeen Secretaries of State went on to become President of the United States (Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Van Buren and Buchanan).
Once roundly criticized by Democrats for his close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin while serving as the CEO of Exxon-Mobil Corporation, Rex Tillerson’s approval by the Senate was largely along partisan lines, as most all of Trump’s cabinet appointments have been. Tillerson was first recommended to the position by George W. Bush’s Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, and Robert Gates, who served as Secretary of Defense under Bush and Barack Obama, and it seems that he has remained at odds with President Trump practically from the beginning of his tenure. Because of its relative importance, when compared to other cabinet-level positions, a Secretary of State must be in lock-step agreement with the president under whom they serve, so it was no real surprise when President Trump gave Secretary of State Rex Tillerson his walking papers.
For instance, Rex Tillerson had taken the position that Iran was abiding by their commitments under Barack Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), much to the dismay of his boss who opposed the Iran deal from its inception. Tillerson opposed the president’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accords, opposed Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), opposed Trump’s desire to renegotiate the Clinton-signed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and, most recently, voiced his opposition to the decision of the president to place tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. When President Trump last Thursday accepted the invitation from North Korea’s Kim Jong Un to meet with him to discuss de-nuclearization, Tillerson objected, saying that it was “pre-mature” for any such discussions to take place, and this proved to be the final straw on the back of his own undoing.
Acting more in concert with Trump’s globalist/internationalist predecessors, it is no wonder that Trump fired Tillerson, and then decided to replace him with his own CIA Director, Mike Pompeo. Pompeo, who has given most of the daily intelligence briefings to the president, has won the trust of Trump and there is no doubt that his tenure over the State Department will more closely align with that of the president’s. In replacing Pompeo, Trump has wisely decided to elevate Deputy Director Gina C. Haspel, a career CIA professional since she joined the agency in 1985, as opposed to the more-typically appointed political operatives so prevalent in past administrations. Having over thirty years of experience with the CIA, and a level of expertise uncommon to previous CIA Directors (she once served as Deputy Director of CIA’s National Clandestine Service, which oversees covert operations around the world), Haspel is well equipped to direct the agency once notoriously headed by the likes of John Brennan and, oddly enough, George H. W. Bush.
For his own part, Mike Pompeo is highly respected for his professionalism and his high intellect. Graduating first in his class (1986) at West Point, with a degree in mechanical engineering, he might seem an odd fit to oversee all of those Ivy League graduates, with their degrees in international relations, who have made the State Department a morass of discombobulation and ineffectiveness. Nevertheless, Pompeo will faithfully serve a president who has ordered a 31% reduction in the State department operating budget- a good start in “draining the swamp” that is “Foggy Bottom.”
So, while all of the “experts” of statecraft wring their hands at the dismissal of Rex Tillerson, the Secretary of State whose very nomination they so vehemently opposed, confirming Mike Pompeo as Tillerson’s replacement (and Gina Haspel as Pompeo’s replacement) will surely reopen the circus that is the Senate approval process. No doubt, all of the posturing and demagogy attendant to such proceedings will surely fill the airwaves of late March and April.
Meanwhile, the presidency of Donald Trump proceeds unabated and, now that the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has formally cleared the president of any alleged collusion with the Russians, the president can proceed with having the State Department at his back- something altogether new in his service to the nation.
-Drew Nickell, 13 March 2018
© 2018 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.
author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”
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