Al-Khaleej al-Jadid, UAE, September 18
In his recently-published memoir, former Secretary of State John Kerry suggests that President Obama’s ascendency to the White House had a lot to do with him. Kerry cites several instances in which he supposedly gave Obama “golden” advice, leading to the latter’s success on the campaign trail. While this claim is preposterous, it should not be shocking to us. Kerry, after all, has built his career around stealing credit from others while blaming them for his own mistakes. When Syrian President Bashar al-Assad carried out his first chemical attack against the Syrian people, Kerry, who was at the time secretary of state, immediately appeared before the cameras and vowed to retaliate. He described the attack as “an inhumane crime” that the United States would not tolerate. However, the Americans did not take a single action to discipline Assad. When he again appeared before the press just a few days later, Kerry resorted to lying: he claimed that an American attack was unnecessary since all of Assad’s chemical weapons had been disposed of by Russia. Everyone knew this was clearly untrue, and just a few weeks later Assad used chemical weapons again against his people. Even today, Kerry continues to feed his ego by blowing his own horn. He has described the Iranian nuclear deal, arguably one of the worst policy failures of our time as a “great diplomatic achievement.” Now, in an effort to salvage the deal, Kerry is busy conducting meetings and negotiations with Iranian officials despite having left government almost two years ago. This brazen behavior defies all diplomatic norms. Even Democratic congressmen were shocked by Kerry’s meddling and urged him to stay out of politics. Alas, Kerry remains obsessed with his own self-image. He has become so wedded to his nuclear deal that he now fails to distinguish U.S. interests from Iranian ones. Indeed, in many circles in Washington, D.C. he has acquired the dubious title of “Mullah—a term suggesting that his loyalty lies not with his own country but rather with Iran. –Mamduh al-Miheini