Another mainstream Republican President Trump has empowered big time is Nimrata Nikki Haley, the 46-year-old daughter of immigrants from Punjab, India, former governor of South Carolina (where she disrespected Southern history by removing Robert E. Lee’s battle flag), and now US ambassador to the United Nations. I wonder which wars Haley will launch when her time comes to really call the shots?
Haley, heavily pushed by the Ivanka-Jared wing of the White House, waltzed into her job without conditions, having been given “a free hand to set foreign policy.”
Diplomats say “She doesn’t know enough about foreign policy to know what is her foreign policy.” Well, she knows enough to “distance herself from the new president on multiple key foreign-policy fronts, carving out an approach that hewed closer to Republican foreign-policy leaders in the Senate, including Bob Corker, Lindsey Graham, and John McCain. She pilloried Russia, denouncing Putin as an untrustworthy rival and dismissing the prospects of working productively with Assad in the war against the Islamic State.”
Even as she accepted Trump’s offer to serve at the U.N., Haley distanced herself from the new president on multiple key foreign-policy fronts, carving out an approach that hewed closer to Republican foreign-policy leaders in the Senate, including Bob Corker, Lindsey Graham, and John McCain. She pilloried Russia, denouncing Putin as an untrustworthy rival and dismissing the prospects of working productively with Assad in the war against the Islamic State….
Haley’s European colleagues noted that her core positions from Russia to Syria and Ukraine aligned neatly with their own, making her a potential partner who might soften the contours of the president’s controversial policies. “She couldn’t have been better from our point of view,” says one U.N. Security Council member. “She positioned herself comfortably at our end of the administration’s spectrum.”
UPDATE (3/13):
The newly hired has Haley’s approval:
Retweeted Daniel McAdams (@DanielLMcAdams):
All you need to know about Mike Pompeo… https://t.co/17hxYiPAwt https://t.co/T50zZVI2AF
— Ilana Mercer (@IlanaMercer) March 13, 2018
Neocons are happy about Mike Pompeo:
The neocons are thrilled with every Trump personnel move. So why do they continue to (pretend to) oppose Trump? Hint: It has to do with dialectics. https://t.co/Czj7n4Osaz
— Daniel McAdams (@DanielLMcAdams) March 13, 2018
With Pompeo taking over State from Tillerson, we now have:
1) CIA taking over State
2) CIA/NSC/etc influx making 25% of 2018 Democratic candidates in competitive areas
3) CIA former heads, officers influx to NBC, MSNBC
4) CIA fake news journalist Ken Dilanian sheltered at NBC— Julian Assange ? (@JulianAssange) March 13, 2018
The woman who should have had the job. An old-school Democrat:
Choosing neocon warhawk Mike Pompeo to serve as Secretary of State, our nation's top diplomat, does not bode well for peace.
— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) March 13, 2018