If you look closely, you can pinpoint the moment Tuesday afternoon when Acting Assistant Secretary of State Stuart Jones prayed silently for the earth to open up and swallow him whole.
It’s really that bad.
Jones joined reporters Tuesday for a routine press briefing. He was asked a relatively simple question: Why does the White House criticize Iranian elections but never elections in Saudi Arabia?
Amazingly enough, Jones clearly was not prepared for it.
What followed next was a solid 18 seconds of silence as Jones raced through his mind thinking of a half-decent answer to a basic question about an apparent double standard.
Watch as Stuart Jones, a high-level acting official in the State Dept, is asked why they criticize Iranian elections but never Saudi Arabia: pic.twitter.com/RLkKGn48Z7— Alex Emmons (@AlexanderEmmons) May 30, 2017
The answer Jones landed on eventually was underwhelming, to put it mildly.
“I think what we say is that, uh, at this meeting, we were able to make significant progress with Saudi and GCC partners and, uh, both make a strong statement against extremism and also, um, and also putting in, putting in place certain measures through this GCC mechanism where we can combat extremism.”
“Clearly one source of extremism – one source – one terrorism threat is coming from Iran. And that’s coming from a part of the Iranian apparatus that is not at all responsive to its electorate,” he added.
The most amazing thing about all of this is that Jones is a long-time State Department professional. He’s not some flunky who was given a plum job thanks to some obscure White House connection. State Department business is Jones’ bread and butter.
That he was so utterly unprepared to defend Washington’s apparent Saudi/Iran double standard is astounding. It suggests the State Department has not put in the time grappling with this issue. It also suggests few, if any, have bothered to ask the question.
