The Secretary Of State In A Second Term Of Obama

The Weekly Standard posted a story on Monday about the choice of Secretary of State if President Obama wins a second term. Evidently, the conventional wisdom is that Hillary Clinton will step down in order to run for President in 2016. Senator John Kerry is the expected replacement.

An editorial in the Globe and Mail by Yossi Klein Halevi related the following story:

Last year, I was part of a group of Israelis who met in Jerusalem with Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. Mr. Kerry had just come from Damascus with excellent news: Bashar al-Assad was ready for peace with Israel. When one of the participants mentioned that demonstrations had begun to challenge Mr. Assad’s legitimacy, Mr. Kerry’s response was: All the more reason to negotiate while he’s still in power. In other words: Israel had the golden opportunity to give up the strategic Golan Heights to a dictator who might be deposed by a popular revolution, which might or might not recognize whatever peace agreement he signed.

That kind of wishful thinking has resulted in Western policy toward the Middle East that is strategically incoherent.

A second term of President Obama would be a nightmare both domestically and internationally. Keep this in mind when you vote.

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