A top State Department official hit Donald Trump Friday during a conference about genocide committed by the Islamic State, praising the country’s diversity and criticizing the Republican candidate’s pledge to build a border wall.
Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken acknowledged the difficulty of repairing the Iraqi society in the wake of genocide against Christians, Yezidis and Shia Muslims by the Islamic terrorist group, but he added that skepticism about “the value proposition of diversity and inclusion” has spread around the world.
“We hear it in the calls to build walls and turn away families seeking refuge from war,” Blinken said in a clear reference to Trump’s two most famous policy proposals.
“The United States, as all of you know, is not immune to these debates. Sometimes we too slip from our pursuit of what we call a more perfect union. But we’ve always thrived when we find our way back to our own North Star, when we cherish and protect the rich diversity of our nation while honoring our common humanity.”
Trump has pledged to build a wall on the southern U.S. border to prevent illegal immigration from Mexico, and he has denounced President Obama’s plan to bring 10,000 Syrian refugees into the country, arguing that terrorists posing as refugees will take advantage of the program to get to the United States.
Blinken urged the assembled diplomats — who represented more than 25 countries, as well as the United Nations and the European Union, according to the State Department — to help rebuild the portions of Iraq reclaimed from Islamic State control. But he emphasized that “only the people of Iraq” ultimately can rehabilitate their country.
“All Iraqis — be they Sunni, Shia, Kurd, Christian or any other — have to be convinced that the state that they’ve been asked to fight for, the state they’ve been asked to remain a part of, will stand up for their rights and their equities, that they can advance their interests more effectively as citizens of a united Iraq than as supplicants of other regional powers or members of isolated competitive blocs in a fractured and weakened state,” he said.
