A foreign policy panel at Harvard last month exemplified why President Trump finds favor with many Americans. The panel played perfectly to Trump’s narrative of elitist groupthink in the liberal foreign policy establishment.
The Harvard event was organized in celebration of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Moderated by a distinguished former U.S. diplomat and current Harvard professor, Nicholas Burns, the panel included former Obama administration officials Michele Flournoy and Anne Marie Slaughter, former Bush administration official Meghan O’Sullivan, and Washington Post columnist David Ignatius.
Burns began by making clear his political allegiances. “It is privilege for us all to be here with the most most extraordinary, most accomplished public servant that we have had in this country in a long, long time, Hillary Rodham Clinton.”
Hmmm.
Whatever one thinks of Clinton’s presidential campaign and character, it’s hard to see how her tenure as chief diplomat was “extraordinary.” That descriptor is best suited to former secretaries like John Quincy Adams, George Marshall, Dean Acheson, and Henry Kissinger.
Doubling down on the exaggerated deference was Anne Marie Slaughter, who served as the State Department’s senior strategist under Clinton. Slaughter quickly showed that she struggles to speak without emulating Obama-style moral preaching. She contended that the U.S. is now the “global hypocrite” and that we must persuade “young [Americans] of color” as to why the U.S. needs to be in the Middle East. Slaughter did not provide much reasoning as to why such persuasion is crucial to grand strategy, but at least it ticked the identity politics box.
Slaughter continued by complaining about domestic U.S. infrastructure. “I live on Amtrak,” she said, “I know of what I speak.” That comment is notable for two reasons. First off, why is Amtrak relevant to U.S. foreign policy? Second, that which Slaughter speaks of is the northeastern Amtrak corridor, which is subsidized by federal taxpayers to benefit the nation’s highest earners.
Oh, and Slaughter also asserted that “we need to learn how to lead.” Her credibility here might be stronger had Slaughter not been Clinton’s chief strategist when the then-secretary hit the Russian reset button and laid in a course for the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines flight H-17 and Aleppo, Syria.
Then came the only Republican on the panel, Meghan O’Sullivan, who served the nation with distinction during the occupation of Iraq. O’Sullivan offered the obligatory deference to Clinton but made a good point on the grand opportunity of U.S. “energy abundance.” This is an issue the moderator Burns ignores when he blames Trump for the European Union’s increasing deference to Vladimir Putin.
Flournoy followed O’Sullivan.
Flournoy, a former Obama administration defense official, was impressive. She called for “a very clear policy of deterrence” to prevent Russia from “meddling in the next round of elections.” And to her credit, Flournoy gave a not-so-subtle rejoinder to Obama’s failure to punish Russian aggression in 2016. She warned that Trump needed to make clear there would be, “no kidding, costs” if Russia interfered in U.S. elections again. Obama made that same warning, but never enforced it. Flournoy was also justifiably tough on Trump for his equivocation on the merits of the NATO alliance.
Finally there was the Washington Post’s David Ignatius. Ignatius made some good points about Syria but was derisory in relation to Trump’s North Korea policy. Taped the day following Trump’s cancellation of the summit with Kim Jong Un, Ignatius used the Harvard audience to joke that Trump’s cancellation note was a love affair breakup letter.
Then Burns asked the panelists what they most admired about Clinton.
Anne Marie Slaughter was quick to unleash her praise: “I’ve got books on that subject.” Slaughter then expounded on how Clinton taught her that respecting people is an integral element of foreign policy.
That comment brought my thoughts to the thoughts of Clinton’s former Diplomatic Security Service detail. After all, they told the FBI that the former secretary of state refused to travel with U.S. ambassadors on visits to foreign nations (interactions that might have been both polite and informative) and was “so contemptuous [of her detail agents] that many of them sought reassignment or employment elsewhere.”
Flournoy described Clinton as an “amazing role model” who “cannot be stopped from serving her country.” Neither can Clinton be stopped from blaming others for her own failures.
Ignatius argued that Clinton “consistently gets the big things right” (Apart from Michigan, that is — right?)
Maybe I’m being oversensitive here and it’s true that I’m a conservative who is no fan of Clinton. Yet there’s a problem when a panel discussion like this one has no offering of substantial criticism. Harvard is a great educational institution that should pursue robust introspection as well as passionate opinion. So why did the panel fail to consider whether Secretary Clinton shares blame for the Russian reset delusion? Or whether history will tar Clinton’s record with the scars of Syria? Or if U.S. leadership in the world was damaged by Clinton’s support for the Libya intervention? Or why Clinton failed to reform the State Department’s top heavy bureaucracy? Or whether Clinton could have done things differently during the Benghazi attack?
Instead, just as the neoconservatives showed too little humility after leaving the Bush administration, these Clinton aficionados show no humility after leaving the Obama administration. It’s a nice reminder of why people voted for Trump.
Anyway, you can watch the discussion here.
