Dark Horse for the UN
SINCE this week’s surprise announcement that Nikki Haley would depart by year’s end, everyone wants to know who’ll replace America’s UN ambassador — who was first dismissed, then hated, then feared and eventually appreciated heck, even loved (at least by some).
The answer, obviously, is up to the never-predictable President Trump, so most names bandied about are speculative, with many driven by wishful thinking. So here’s a wish: Christopher Burnham. Never heard of him? You may soon.
Sure, there are other worthy candidates; Washington reporters come up with new ones daily. The much-advertised front-runner, former Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell, made clear Thursday she’d rather remain at Goldman Sachs.
Trump said another front-runner, Richard Grenell, is doing a good job as ambassador to Germany, where he seems happy for now.
How about former Sen. Joe Lieberman, the last of the Democratic Party’s foreign-policy hawks and current crusader against Iran’s nuclear ambitions? Or Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker of Tennessee?
CNN reports former ambassador to Hungary Nancy Brinker was approached by the White House. Interior secretary Ryan Zinke, a former Navy SEAL and a rising star in Trump circles, is interested in the UN post, according to Fox News.
Former Sen. Kelly Ayotte, Ambassador to Canada Kelly Knight Craft and NATO Ambassador Kay Bailey Hutchison are top contenders as well. And given the politics of the day — and the approaching midterms — it’s a position that could well be decided largely by a candidate’s gender.
All of these names are certainly worthy of consideration. But Burnham, who seems to have gotten only a small share of the attention so far (and may be of the wrong sex), has stellar qualities of his own to recommend him.
He’s well-positioned, for starters, to continue what Haley started at the world body and, indeed, to delve even deeper than she did into the hopelessly Byzantine bureaucracy, with an eye toward fixing it.
Back in 2005-2006, then-Undersecretary General for Management Burnham, a former Connecticut comptroller and State Department official, was the highest American at the UN under Kofi Annan. Effectively the bureaucracy’s CEO, he pushed back against the place’s worst instincts.
He forced senior officials, for example, to file annual financial-disclosure forms — a common anticorruption tool in most democracies but absent at the world body until then.
He was also at the UN when National Security Adviser John Bolton served as ambassador, and both were instrumental in exposing the organization’s largest-ever scandal: the bribery-laden Oil for Food program.
Haley did wonders standing up for America, its values and its allies. Ideally, her successor should be able to pick up where she left off and ensure that the UN serves America’s interests. Someone who can explain Trump’s “America First” vision to a place where every country — no matter how ruthless or anti-US — is deemed equal. Someone who will challenge the prevailing “we-playthe-US-pays” mentality.
There, too, Burnham’s the man: A former Marine, he “was like a bull in a china shop,” an official who worked with him at the UN tells me. If anything, “he was way too pro-US.” Perfect, that is, to succeed Haley.
A top player in Trump’s 2016 transition team, Burnham remains close to the White House. In Washington this week, he was asked if he’d leave life as a banker for UN ambassadorship. “I’ve served my country in peace and war, in elected and civilian capacity,” he told me. “The highest call in life is to serve your country.”
Should Trump choose a woman as Haley’s successor in a bid to woo female voters for Republicans in November? Bolton — one of the most consequential UN ambassadors in modern times — will help him decide.
As for the handicapping on who’ll get the nod, the Heritage Foundation’s James Carafano warns: “Those who say don’t know, and those who know don’t say.” Carafano, alongside Burnham, was a member of the transition team that helped Trump pick Haley.
But a successor like Burnham, who knows where the bones are buried at Turtle Bay, could surely build on Haley’s success. And — who knows? — maybe even make the UN useful for America again.