Tuesday, September 30th began well for John Kerry. His faithful admirers at the New York Times published a feature putting forward the thesis that contrasted Kerry’s idealism and can-do attitude toward foreign policy problems with President Obama’s supposedly more pragmatic approach. The upshot was that these differences made for creative conflicts that generally work to Kerry’s advantage, with the secretary’s approach prevailing in the Iran nuclear negotiations as well as in Middle East peace talks. But while the White House and the State Department both seemed to see this trend as proving that Kerry’s persistence eventually pays off with success, the day did not end quite so well for the former senator from Massachusetts. Though the article pointed to Kerry’s constant dialogue with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as evidence that he can, by employing what one observer aptly referred to as “his high regard for his own diplomatic acuity,” solve even as intractable a problem as the conflict with Syria.
But before the day was finished, Kerry would be subjected to the sort of humiliation that might break a man who was not utterly convinced in his own greatness. Russia’s decision to launch air strikes on Syrian rebels supported by the United States — preceded by a warning from Moscow for all U.S. personnel to stay out of the country — showed just how futile all of Kerry’s efforts have been. Worse than that, the awkward sight of Kerry holding a joint news conference with Lavrov the same day as Russia’s slap in the administration’s face, during which the two kept referring to each other as “John” and “Sergei,” and talking about their desire to promote “deconfliction” in the region, illustrated something worse that that. Kerry’s devotion to dialogue with Russia not only didn’t prevent it from acting in a manner that undermined America’s policy goals. His faith in his own skills may have actually helped convince the Putin regime that embarking on their Syria adventure to save the Bashar Assad regime was worth the risk since it clearly had nothing to fear from a United States led by such feckless leaders as Obama and Kerry.
When future historians begin the task of explaining the unraveling of America’s Middle East policy, Kerry will not be the only or even perhaps even the main culprit held responsible for the historic sea change that we witnessed on Wednesday. The U.S. retreat from the Middle East and the administration’s willingness to allow Russia to take the sort of action that not even the Soviet Union ever tried even at the height of its empire during the Cold War must be seen as primarily the fault of President Obama. It was his faith in multilateralism and disdain for the application of U.S. power that caused him to both retreat precipitately from Iraq and to dither while the Syrian civil war escalated that allowed the rise of ISIS and also gave the opening for Russia to insert itself into the conflict in such a dramatic fashion. Since intervening in Syria would have angered Assad’s Iranian ally, this also must be seen as yet another unfortunate consequence of Obama’s decision to risk everything and make every possible concession in order to appease Iran into signing a nuclear agreement.
But perhaps nothing demonstrates so thoroughly the futility of the administration’s blind faith in diplomacy as the way Russia has played Kerry like a piano throughout the last three years. Kerry has taken great pride in his relationship with Lavrov — even leaking stories to the Times purporting to show how the two have bonded over their mutual love of ice hockey. Sizing up their egomaniacal customer as only a skilled KGB operative could, Putin has allowed Lavrov to string Kerry along. That has made it harder for the State Department to give a clear-eyed assessment of Russian intentions even as Moscow stole a march on the West in the Middle East. That Kerry is so committed to his relationship with Sergei that he would agree to be trotted out like a captive at a Roman consul’s triumph on the day that Russia insulted his country speaks volumes about his lack of perspective about his own conduct.
But nothing, not even a defeat as humiliating as this, is enough to deflate Kerry’s sense of self-importance. He was left explaining to the international press at his joint press conference with Lavrov on Wednesday evening how he and “Sergei” were working closely to ensure that deconfliction discussions between the ascendant Russians and U.S. forces would continue. But all this amounts to now is likely to be an American agreement to stay out of the Russians’ way.
The problem here is not just that Russians have made a fool of Kerry as well as of Obama. It’s that Kerry’s self-regard that the Times noted on Wednesday morning appeared to be undiminished by the time he skulked off stage at the end of the John-Sergei show. Kerry will continue to push on for a “solution” to Syria at any price just as he did with Iran even though it led him to make concession after concession to Tehran leaving him at the end of the process with a deal that ensured a path to a bomb for the Islamist regime rather than forestalling it. He’s likely to continue to do the same with fruitless negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians despite the president’s prudent decision to omit that topic from his UN General Assembly speech for the first time since he took office. The pattern here is one of a march of folly that is rooted in the unwillingness, by either Kerry or Obama, to learn from their mistakes, even when they are as obvious as the latest one with the Russians. More tragedies and further decline in America’s fortunes abroad are sure to follow.
