David Ignatius presents impeachment as part of the normal functioning machinery of American government, and viewing it as a negative feedback mechanism does give it a positive spin for us engineer types. But I found Ignatius’ comments about foreign policy a little jarring:
Since Watergate, presidents and their aides have warned that impeachment is destabilizing to foreign policy. But history suggests otherwise. Presidential scandals create uncertainty abroad, but the impeachment process itself seems to bring clarity and resolution.
Keep this lesson in mind this week as the Senate begins its trial of President Trump. The president’s advocates will argue (as he himself has already) that impeachment and trial are harmful to America’s image abroad and derail normal foreign policy. But the evidence doesn’t support that dire view. …
Kissinger, Nixon wrote, “had the effrontery to show the nation and the world that the United States under my leadership was still able to command respect in the world and achieve significant results despite the drag of Watergate.” …
Madeleine Albright, Clinton’s secretary of state during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and subsequent impeachment, remembers that, like Kissinger, she was determined “to steer a steady course” in foreign policy. It helped, she wrote in “Madam Secretary,” that “my colleagues from around the world couldn’t understand why anyone would care what the president might or might not have done.” [WaPo]
The problem, of course, is that Nixon’s Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, is easily the most famous and respected diplomat in American history, and certainly Secretary Madeleine Albright was no slouch herself.
But Trump’s Secretary Pompeo? While his activities may win plaudits from the far right, the simple fact of the matter is that he’s done little of notice for the mainstream. He’s failed to defend Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch from Trump’s denigrations, and otherwise it’s hard to think of any initiatives he’s leading of any note.
Of course, this is a result of President Trump basically ignoring the entire machinery of diplomacy, deciding instead to run his mouth in public and on Twitter, pretending that trade wars are easy to hide, and, well, we all know the nonsense he spews – and if you don’t, you need to educate yourself.
So, in a weird sort of way, to the extent that the impeachment distracts Trump from trying to renew his bromance with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, his ill-hidden admiration for the Russian invaders of Ukraine, and his general spastic approach to foreign relations, our foreign friends and acquaintances and adversaries can relax and attend to other problems: Australia to its fires and morally bankrupt government, China to the novel coronavirus of which we know so little, and so many other problems.
So I don’t disagree with Ignatius about the potential end result, I simply see Pompeo as another ineffective Trumpist who’s unlikely to mess anything up while Trump is preoccupied with the trial.
