After getting thoroughly outmaneuvered at the U.N. Security Council meeting this week, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley apologized in advance to the Syrian victims of the next chemical weapons attack.
The sheer arrogance of this statement is staggering.
As an American, Haley is an embarrassment and unfit to represent my interests at the U.N. Her outburst was in response to Russia vetoing the latest attempt by her to bully the UNSC to accept a resolution extending the investigation into the April chemical weapons attack at Khan Sheikhoun in Syria.
This investigation, known as the JIM, is a complete joke. In all the time the U.N. has been operating under it there has been no inspection of either the site of the attack itself or where it supposedly emanated from, the Syrian airbase at al-Shairat.
It has worked off of nothing but hearsay and corrupted data.
And with President Trump’s knee-jerk bombing of that airbase, any investigation is likely moot anyway. This move by Trump was one of the great geopolitical blunders of the year and it ensured that the U.S. would stay locked on this path to use this incident to bludgeon Russia diplomatically.
It’s like Mueller’s special investigation into ‘Russia-gate.’ These are open wounds never intended to be treated. The goal of them is to keep making cheap points in the media to demonize Russia and advance an agenda orthogonal to the interests of literally 98% of the planet.
So, in short, Haley and her neocon handlers in U.S. diplomatic and military circles are continuing to play childish games, using the UNSC as nothing more than a platform from which to disingenuously grandstand.
I know, in other news water is wet.
The problem for the U.S., however, is more and more of the world rolls its eyes at the shambolic mix of desperation and ineptitude exhibited by Haley and her entourage.
The final vote which ended this farce came after a wild week of resolutions and counter-resolutions which highlighted the growing discontent of the U.S.’s allies on this issue.
The fact that multiple reliable U.S. allies abstained or voted with Russia when Bolivia introduced Russia’s draft resolution after Russia vetoed the JIM extension, including Japan, is telling of just how fed up with our duplicity everyone is.
Haley’s childish outburst, pre-apologizing for chemical weapons attacks unlikely to occur now that the U.S.-backed rebels have been subdued through Russian-led diplomatic and military efforts, is one for the history books. It is proof positive that she has exactly the wrong temperament to be a diplomat and negotiator. She’s a bully.
And a bad bully at that. When Ethiopia, a country very dependent on U.S. aid for its continued existence, refuses to back your play continuing to run your ‘isolate Russia’ playbook in the media is more than an embarrassment, it’s shameful.
I’m not asking for the U.S. to roll over and give the Russians everything they want in the world. But I do want our people to act with at least of modicum of decency in the process.
Russia’s concerns about that JIM were more than warranted. Everyone on the UNSC knows this. And the fact that the U.S. attempted multiple times to continue its existence simply to score cheap political points which will not change the playing field one whit while real problems exist that need the UNSC’s attention gives you an idea of just how lost U.S. diplomacy is.
I’ve said in multiple articles that I felt the neoconservative cabal that runs U.S. and Israeli foreign policy will continue to press whatever advantages they have until they run out of them. The fact that Haley can be reduced to a simpering fool gives you an idea of where the international politics is headed.
She even went so far as to lie about not being able to get the Russian diplomatic mission on the phone during all of this.
In response to Haley’s antics Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov commented,
“It seems, we are witnessing a new phenomenon in international relations, as now, apart from fake news, there is also fake diplomacy,” Lavrov said Friday.
And for that Nikki Haley owes not only Russia but the rest of the world her most sincere apology.
She should start with resigning her post.