State Department Forvitrer

Brende møter Tillerson i Washington DC - fra Dagbladet

Norges utenriksminister Børge Brende snakket denne uka med USAs utenriksminister Rex Tillerson. Slike samtaler er viktige, særlig i overgangsfasen til en ny administrasjon. Men flere begynner å lure på hvor mye innflytelse Tillerson faktisk har. På Washington Post sin nettside har Dan Drezner en sak med en overskrift som minner om den tidligere stående vits fra NRKs "Nytt på Nytt" om Karl Eirik Schjøtt-Pedersen: Where in the world is Secretary of State Rex Tillerson? Drezners artikkel er et fint utgangspunkt for å lese mer om prosessene bak Trumps utenrikspolitisk maskineri.

Hovedbudskapet er at Tillerson og State Department ser ut til å marginaliseres under denne administrasjonen. Derfor var det antakeligvis enda viktigere for Norge at Brende også hadde et møte i det Hvite Hus med svigersønn Jared Kushner for å snakke om Midtøsten. Fordi veien til presidenten ser ut til å være langt kortere med Kushner enn med Tillerson. Det tyder på en bevist og klok norsk diplomatisk strategi, særlig når det amerikanske utenriksdepartementet har usikker byråkratisk lederskap, manglende nærhet til makt, og er truet med omfattende budsjettkutt (GOP ledere i Kongressen vil nok redde Foggy Bottom til slutt, men signaleffekten er ikke til å misforstå).

I en Vanity Fair artikkel om Kushner:

Indeed, The Washington Post reported last weekend that Kushner was acting as “almost a shadow secretary of state,” hovering over the shoulder of Tillerson, who spent a decade as chairman and chief executive at ExxonMobil, the world’s sixth most valuable company. The source familiar with the situation told me that Kushner, who took over his father’s real-estate company when he was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison, has stood eye-to-eye with Tillerson and James “Mad Dog” Mattis, a retired general and current Defense secretary, and they have, in turn, sought out Kushner’s counsel before they have gone to the president with ideas or concerns.

Denne artikkelen fra Julie Ioffe i The Atlantic on State Department er en oppsiktsvekkende "must read". Det beskriver en nedbygging av USAs diplomatisk apparat på en måte som vil ha alvorlige konsekvenser.

The fact that there hasn’t been a deputy secretary of state nominated, and that many undersecretary slots sit empty, is also unnerving to a bureaucracy used to relying on a strict hierarchy to get things done. “Not having a deputy ... is going to become a problem real soon,” the staffer said. “The world has been pretty quiet but it won’t stay that way.” She and others I spoke to worry about the optics of Tillerson flanked by empty seats during his meeting in Bonn, Germany, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who was accompanied by a dozen aides. All these details send signals that other countries’ leaders and diplomats pore over for indications of potential policy changes. “With the Chinese, protocol is policy,” said the mid-level State officer. “We’re sending signals that are potentially damaging the relationship in ways we can’t anticipate.”

It also worries some State employees that Tillerson was unable to name his own deputy. His choice of the neocon Elliott Abrams was vetoed by the White House because Abrams had criticized Trump, and many in Foggy Bottom saw it as yet another signal that they and their secretary were being downgraded. “It’s troubling that his first battle with the president, he lost,” said the State employee. “If he couldn’t even bring in his own staff member, it’s concerning for future issues.”

On Tuesday, Trump confirmed their fears, telling Fox and Friends that there was a reason he wasn’t filling certain government posts: “in many cases, I don’t want to fill those posts. … They’re unnecessary.”

Michael