My colleague Tom Rogan is right that the British government should recall its ambassador to the United States. But that doesn’t mean the ambassador’s leaked assessment of President Trump’s diplomacy was wrong.
In appropriately candid internal memos secured by the Daily Mail, Ambassador Kim Darroch described Trump as “inept,” “incompetent,” and “insecure.” He would also have been right to say that even to Trump’s own underlings, the president’s spasmodic diplomatic moods often must appear incomprehensible, injudicious, and irresponsible.
According to Darroch, the situation is unlikely to improve: “We don’t really believe this Administration is going to become substantially more normal; less dysfunctional; less unpredictable; less faction riven; less diplomatically clumsy and inept.”
Now, let it first be said that the publication of what was meant as secure communications has unquestionably made Darroch’s job untenable. As Rogan wrote, “Britain simply cannot afford to alienate the leader of its closest ally.”
Conversely, Trump himself has done plenty to alienate our closest ally, Great Britain. He has repeatedly, directly insulted its (outgoing) prime minister, Theresa May, and the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. (With Khan, at least Trump was returning fire, but the president of the United States still should not stoop to that level.) Trump has often tried to interfere with internal British politics, has repeatedly claimed without evidence that the British government spied on his campaign, and has threatened trade punishment against Great Britain even though those threats made it tougher for the British to achieve Brexit, which Trump supports.
Those, however, are hardly the only reasons Ambassador Darroch might have assessed the Trump administration so harshly. If Trump’s Cabinet and aides had not intervened to reverse Trump’s original policy pronouncements, Trump would have moved closer to renouncing the central provision of the entire NATO alliance, would have withdrawn American advisers from Syria before gains against ISIS were consolidated, and would have “closed” the Mexican-American border to all trade and travel.
Another time, one of his policy reversals went in the wrong direction, despite his aides’ apparent advice, as he unwisely withdrew harsher sanctions about to be imposed against North Korea.
Trump’s bizarre kowtowing to dictators, especially to Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s horrible Kim Jong Un, has done tremendous damage to U.S. moral standing. His pathetic attempts to provide cover for the murderous Saudi crown prince were cringe-inducing. His saber-rattling against the evil regime in Venezuela achieved nothing, leaving the United States with egg on its face and leaving the poor people of Venezuela still in agony. His trade wars are hurting the global economy in ways that could well reverberate back onto the United States.
And Trump’s zig-zagging on how to penalize Iran, although well intentioned, leaves that situation volatile, with no obvious gains yet for U.S. interests or world peace.
Darroch was perhaps most concerned by Trump’s apparent inability to provide any clear guidance for his advisers: “The stories about White House knife fights are, we judge, mostly true: multiple sources and confirmed by our own White House contacts. This is a uniquely dysfunctional environment.”
In a genuine crisis, the dysfunction within the Trump administration and even within Trump’s own alternating inclinations and whims could be deadly. For example, a propensity to order military strikes, only to call them off with only 10 minutes to spare, is hardly a cause for confidence. Major wars can start over mere accidents.
Darroch didn’t use the following words, but the import of his memos could be summed up thus: Donald Trump’s undiplomatic “diplomacy” is a menace to international safety and stability. If that’s what Darroch really meant, the ambassador was right.
