Republican
foreign policy leaders grow despondent
After
a burst of optimism that Trump would take a conciliatory path,
veterans of past administrations express alarm at names being floated
for top posts.
By MICHAEL CROWLEY
AND SHANE GOLDMACHER 11/16/16, 8:42 AM CET Updated 11/16/16, 7:53 PM
CET
Republican foreign
policy veterans are newly alarmed over the emerging shape of Donald
Trump’s national security team, after signs that Trump is passing
over well-regarded establishment figures in favor of controversial
and less experienced political allies, including former New York
Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a likely secretary of state pick.
After the initial
shock of Trump’s election last Tuesday, some Republican elites had
consoled themselves over early talk that the New York real estate
mogul might choose for the most sensitive posts in his government
several well-known centrists with conventional views who might temper
Trump’s boldest impulses.
But that mood has
darkened sharply since the weekend. In recent days, Trump aides have
signaled that Giuliani — who has no formal diplomatic experience
and who critics say is tangled in conflicts of interest — might be
asked to run the State Department. Another contender for that post is
former ambassador John Bolton, a contentious figure whom even a
Republican Senate refused to confirm when George W. Bush tapped him
to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 2005. (Bolton was
installed at the U.N. by recess appointment.)
Meanwhile, several
well-regarded figures, such as former House Intelligence Committee
Chairman Mike Rogers, who was ousted from Trump’s transition team
on Tuesday, are no longer seen as being in play for senior jobs.
Many
Republicans critical of Trump said they found it hard to imagine
Giuliani or Bolton as America’s top diplomat.
As a seven-term
congressman from Michigan, Rogers was widely respected, even among
many Democrats — a potential reason he was shown the exit from
Trump’s transition. The conservative Weekly Standard magazine noted
on Tuesday that Rogers had overseen a 2014 House Intelligence
Committee report on the September 2012 Benghazi attacks that angered
conservatives with its conclusion that the Obama administration had
not misled the public about that event. Other sources familiar with
the transition said that Rogers had been purged for his connection to
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who was ousted last week as the head
of Trump’s transition team.
Other foreign policy
figures whom Republicans say would be natural choices for any other
GOP president-elect are conspicuously absent from Trump campaign
personnel leaks. They include Stephen Hadley, a centrist who served
as George W. Bush’s national security adviser; outgoing New
Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, a leading GOP voice on defense and
national security; and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman
Bob Corker, considered a temperate mainstream voice. Rogers had been
in line for a top intelligence post, possibly CIA director.
“Last week, people
were buoyed that Hadley might be under consideration and Corker
seemed to have a shot at secretary of state,” said one
disillusioned Republican with ties to the Trump transition.
Now those fleeting
hopes have been dashed, several sources said.
The growing
understanding that Hadley is highly unlikely to join the Trump team
was particularly deflating, sources said. Many establishment
Republicans had pinned their hopes on a key role for Hadley, perhaps
as secretary of defense, because he was among the most senior GOP
foreign policy insiders not to publicly denounce Trump during the
campaign and because he inspires loyalty in GOP circles.
Many Republicans
critical of Trump said they found it hard to imagine Giuliani or
Bolton as America’s top diplomat.
Giuliani lacks
traditional foreign policy experience, although he does enjoy Trump’s
personal trust after serving as one of his staunchest campaign
defenders, including after a tape of Trump making lewd comments
threatened his candidacy.
After witnessing the
2001 destruction of the World Trade Center when he was mayor of New
York, Giuliani has been impassioned on the subject of Islamic
terrorism to a degree that makes even many hawkish Republicans
uncomfortable.
“I said ‘Islamic
extremist terrorism!’” Giuliani cried at the Republican National
Convention this summer in a speech many noted for its bellowing
delivery. “You know who you are! And we’re coming to get you!”
Corker, by contrast,
has rarely been heard to raise his voice, a quality far more typical
for a prominent diplomat.
Several Republicans
conceded that Bolton has a strong grasp of foreign policy and
diplomacy, drawn from a long State Department career that included
his tenure at the U.N. But many are turned off by his contentious
manner.
Republicans also
noted that Giuliani has had numerous business dealings abroad,
including in the Middle East, that will draw sharp scrutiny. Both
Giuliani and Bolton have reportedly taken money from and supported
the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, an Iranian political-military organization
that advocates the violent overthrow of Iran’s clerical regime but
which was considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. until 2012.
Top Republicans also
expressed strong doubts about the fitness of other inner-circle Trump
advisers to hold top foreign policy positions, including retired Lt.
Gen. Michael Flynn, who has been mentioned as a possible national
security adviser.
To Trump’s allies,
the complaints from the GOP establishment are a sign that he is on
the right path.
During his first
major foreign policy speech in April, Trump vowed to “look for
talented experts with new approaches, and practical ideas, rather
than surrounding myself with those who have perfect résumés but
very little to brag about except responsibility for a long history of
failed policies and continued losses at war.”
“No one —
literally not a single Republican I know, and I know a lot of
Republicans — is talking to that tiny inner circle” — Former
George W. Bush official
But many elder
statesmen of the foreign policy world have grown alarmed that Trump’s
team will not be prepared for the dangers of the increasingly
unstable world they will inherit.
At a Monday meeting
of the elite Aspen Strategy Group, Brent Scowcroft, who served as
George H.W. Bush’s national security adviser — and who endorsed
Hillary Clinton — urged attendees, “If you’re asked to serve,
please do. This man needs help.”
For many Republican
insiders, that does not seem to an option. Republicans who might be
stepping into plum jobs under a president Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio say
it is becoming clear that Trump and his opaque inner circle don’t
seem hungry for establishment expertise.
“They’ve got a
quality gap they have to close. And if you pick someone like Kelly
Ayotte, you’re going to get people who think, ‘You know what?
[Trump] wasn’t my guy, but he’s president, he’s making good
personnel choices. I feel like I can go and work for her,'” said a
former senior Republican foreign policy official.
“None of that is
happening,” he added.
“No one —
literally not a single Republican I know, and I know a lot of
Republicans — is talking to that tiny inner circle” in Trump
Tower, said one former George W. Bush administration foreign policy
official. “That’s because the Trump people don’t want to talk.”
Evidence for that
came Tuesday from Eliot A. Cohen, a former aide to Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice. An adamant opponent during the campaign, Cohen had
urged fellow Republicans after the election to consider serving Trump
in the national interest. But on Twitter on Tuesday, Cohen reversed
course.
“After exchange w
Trump transition team, changed my recommendation: stay away,” Cohen
wrote. “They’re angry, arrogant, screaming ‘you LOST!’ Will
be ugly.”
Authors:
Michael Crowley and
Shane Goldmacher
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