Rex Tillerson: Secretary of State Sabotage?

Patrick Poole | 8:24 AM on July 17, 2017
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson takes a photo with the Foreign Ministers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE, and Bahrain, and the Kuwaiti Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs after a meeting in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, on Thursday, July 13, 2017. (U.S. State Department via AP)

Who is ultimately responsible for U.S. foreign policy: the elected president of the United States, or the State Department, the CIA, and the media cartel?

That’s the question that must be asked after the past month. Rex Tillerson and the State Department have repeatedly sabotaged President Trump’s stated foreign policy position related to the ongoing crisis between the Gulf states and Qatar over the latter’s sheltering and funding of terrorist groups operating in the region.

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This was seen last week, when Tillerson signed a so-called “anti-terrorism” agreement with Qatar:

But no sooner had Tillerson signed this “anti-terrorism” agreement than did Qatar openly state its support for the terrorist group Hamas:

In the region, this was seen as Qatar deliberately making Tillerson look like a complete fool.

Not only do Tillerson and the State Department’s moves in this crisis support terror-funding Qatar, but they alienate our long-time Arab allies in the Middle East. Tillerson’s meetings in Saudi Arabia — which came after signing his agreement with Qatar — were termed “a disaster”:

Needless to say, the other Gulf states and Egypt did not respond positively to Tillerson’s so-called “anti-terrorism” agreement with Qatar, either:

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Meanwhile, President Trump has repeatedly supported the other Gulf countries and Egypt in this dispute. He has called out Qatar for its support of terrorism:

Yet Trump has been repeatedly sabotaged by his own secretary of State and State Department:

Tillerson continued his Middle East tour last week by hinting at closer relations with Turkey, which over the past year has nose-dived into open Ottoman Islamist authoritarianism to the considerable consternation of our Arab allies. Except, of course, Qatar:

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One of the primary issues in the crisis over Qatar is their support for the Muslim Brotherhood, which in Egypt is waging an all-out insurgency against the government, and is actively working to destabilize other countries in the region.

At his confirmation hearing, Tillerson classified the Muslim Brotherhood as being in the same league as al-Qaeda:

But as secretary of State, Tillerson has taken an entirely different line, especially during this crisis. For instance, take the comments he made last month — he said the U.S. could not designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization because it is part of the government in some countries:

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Well, the Bahraini foreign minister publicly called out the Muslim Brotherhood, which is part of Bahrain’s own government, as a terrorist organization earlier this month:

Tillerson was also wrong in regards to Turkey — the ruling AKP is not a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate.

One of the other examples trotted out by the media cartel in support of the Muslim Brotherhood is the MB affiliate in Tunisia, which — according to the D.C. foreign policy “smart set” propaganda — serves as a “firewall” against terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS. But as I reported here at PJ Media last month, the head of the Tunisian Muslim Brotherhood has been implicated in the assassination of his chief rival at the hands of al-Qaeda terrorists:

To further negate Tillerson’s claim, terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas are indeed part of their respective governments (in the latter case, actively encouraged by the Bush administration), and yet we’ve had no problem designating them as terrorist organizations.

Remarkably, this is the same Muslim Brotherhood whose terror wing in Egypt, Hassm, is openly making threats against the U.S. Embassy in Cairo that is under Tillerson’s direct oversight:

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Also revealed last week: Qatar had pledged to the other Gulf countries to stop backing the Muslim Brotherhood in an agreement made several years ago after the collapse of the self-styled “Arab Spring.” Qatar has wantonly violated this agreement:

Just yesterday, we had unnamed “U.S. officials” wade further into the crisis by telling the Washington Post that UAE was behind the hacking of the Qatari government earlier this year:

A hacking attack that “U.S. officials” had attributed to Russia just a month before:

So what we’re seeing is presumably unelected “U.S. officials” wading into critical political and policy discussions, and issuing leaks and counter-leaks depending on what the preferred media cartel talking point of the day might be.

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The simple fact is that in this crisis — regardless of what might have transpired in the past — many Arab nations perceive these terrorist organizations as direct threats to their own countries, and they are taking action. How can the U.S. pass up an opportunity to assist in that effort? And why would the State Department undermine President Trump’s public support to that end?

The Qatar crisis is exposing that there is a severe conflict of visions in this administration about who actually dictates U.S. foreign policy: the president, or the foreign policy bureaucracy. Among the media cartel and the chattering class of so-called “experts,” the unanimous consensus is that the unelected bureaucrats at the State Department set policy, not the president of the United States:

At its root, this is America’s larger crisis: who ultimately runs the U.S. government?

The election of Donald Trump represented the revolt of many Americans against the prevailing establishment mindset. Virtually every single media outlet that endorsed a candidate selected Hillary Clinton, yet the American electorate chose otherwise. For the establishment, that is heresy that must be rooted out.

What we’re seeing in this conflict between Trump and his own State Department is fundamentally a manifestation of an effort to sabotage American representative democracy. Anyone appointed to the administration who openly undermines the chief executive should be shown the door — from the cabinet on down:

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A secretary of State sabotaging an elected president’s foreign policy is a danger to diplomacy and democracy. Tillerson needs to go now.

Patrick Poole
For media inquiries, please contact [email protected]

Patrick Poole is a national security and terrorism correspondent for PJMedia. Follow him on Twitter.
Category: HOMELAND SECURITY
Tags: HOMELAND SECURITY

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