Buried in Thursday’s busy news cycle was the announcement that former Secretary of State John Kerry is heading back to Yale, this time as a teacher.
According to Politico, the former secretary of state “will supervise the new school’s Kerry Initiative as a distinguished fellow for global affairs,” where he’s set to teach a seminar next school year.
Per Yale’s description, Kerry will supervise, “an interdisciplinary program that will tackle pressing global challenges.”
You know what they say, those who can’t do, teach.
Perhaps Kerry will have more luck “tackling pressing global challenges” as a professor than he did as secretary of state.
By the end of his time in Foggy Bottom, American foreign policy was in chaos.
Just last December, Jim Geraghty summarized the results of Kerry’s secretaryship:
Syria is a charnel house. The Middle East has had plenty of bloody wars before, but only this one overwhelmed the countries of Europe with seemingly endless waves of desperate refugees. The preeminent form of Islamic fundamentalism used to be al-Qaeda, a bunch of extremists hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan. Now bloodthirsty Islamists run an actual state in the middle of the Arab world. Four years after the Benghazi attack, only one perpetrator has been brought to justice.
Russia is emboldened, taking over Crimea, biting into Ukraine, and launching not-so-subtle cyber-warfare against the United States. The Iranians, too, are emboldened, despite the much-touted agreement on their nuclear program. China and North Korea keep rattling their sabers. Venezuela is collapsing. The Taliban continues to control swaths of Afghanistan after 15 years of war.
Now, Yale says, Kerry will work with researchers “on issues including climate change, global economic development, authoritarian populism and violent extremism.”
As Geragthy deftly outlined, Kerry failed miserably at combatting those very issues during his time in office.
Asking John Kerry to teach students how to conduct diplomacy is like asking Bill Clinton to teach ethics.
Given his record, Kerry might be better suited to coach the Yale windsurfing team than instruct our best and brightest in how to combat important problems like violent extremism.
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
