Will Stormy sink Trump?

So Rex Tillerson has finally got the boot, said Fred Kaplan on Slate. The secretary of state’s card had been marked ever since October, when he declined to deny reports that he had referred to Donald Trump as a “f***ing moron”. Since then, he has been at odds with the president on a range of subjects, including Russia, the wisdom of moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and the merits of the Iran nuclear deal. It was only a matter of time before “Rexit” happened. But it still came as something of a shock last week, not least to Tillerson himself, when he gained the unwelcome distinction of becoming the first US cabinet member to be fired via Twitter. It marked an ignominious end for America’s top diplomat, who will go down in history “as arguably the worst – certainly the most passive – secretary of state in a century or longer”.

Trump and Tillerson were an awkward pair from the start, said Susan B. Glasser on Politico. Trump was drawn to the former Exxonmobil CEO “as a wealthy businessman and outsider to Washington like himself; a distinguished-looking greybeard in a tailored suit seemed just the fit for a president for whom appearances matter almost above all else”. But the men were chalk and cheese: Trump, a reckless disrupter; Tillerson, “an old-school realist and real-life Boy Scout who thought he could conduct the sort of pragmatic, by-the-books diplomacy that had worked in putting together oil deals”. It didn’t work. Tillerson’s “ill-conceived revamp” of his department has also been a disaster, resulting in low morale and bureaucratic paralysis.

Tillerson did at least have “good instincts on issues” and was a welcome voice of moderation in the administration, said Amanda Sloat in Foreign Policy. The same cannot be said of his successor, Mike Pompeo. The gregarious CIA chief gets on well with Trump and has a solid reputation as a manager. In policy terms, though, he’s much more hawkish. Indeed, said Peter Beinart in The Atlantic, “never in American history has a secretary of state so firmly espoused the world view of the American Right. In no previous Republican administration – not even George W. Bush’s – has the moderate GOP foreign policy elite lost its hold over even Foggy Bottom.” This marks a historic, and worrying, turning point.

But Trump might at least “listen to, and be tempered by, a responsible hawk”, said Bret Stephens in The New York Times, which is more than can be said for the establishment voices he contemptuously ignores. Pompeo may take a harder line than Tillerson on North Korea and Iran, but he’s at odds with Trump on issues such as Russia and Wikileaks. If you’re worried that Vladimir Putin has some sinister hold over Trump, you should welcome Pompeo’s promotion. The last thing you can say of the guy who graduated first in his class at West Point is that he’s a “Russian stooge”.

Pompeo’s arrival may improve matters in the short term, said Derek Chollet in Foreign Policy. How long, though, before he too falls out of favour? The basic problem is that Trump doesn’t seem “to value or even understand” the core diplomatic role of the State Department. Trump has become less inclined to listen to anyone lately, said Ross Douthat in The New York Times. Some say this is because he resents the idea that he has been contained by handlers. Others believe it’s because he was “terrified” of his job for the first six months, but is now keen to exert power. Either way, he’s “chafing against his bonds and snapping some of them”. Perhaps the new “unbound” Trump will be an improvement; perhaps he’ll soon “subside back into the virtual presidency of his Twitter feed”. Or perhaps this could be “how a descent from farce to tragedy might begin”.