TRUMP FIRES TILLERSON
US president tweets immediate dismissal of his Secretary of State Exit comes after long series of policy clashes between the two CIA director Mike Pompeo lined up to be America’s new chief diplomat
US President Donald Trump fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson yesterday, drawing a line under a tumultuous relationship in which the two men were frequently at odds over America’s key alliances and role in the world.
Mr Trump took to Twitter to unceremoniously sack Mr Tillerson before replacing him with CIA director Mike Pompeo.
Mr Pompeo is expected to be succeeded by Gina Haspel, the first female director of the intelligence agency, if confirmed.
Undersecretary of State Steve Goldstein and other State Department officials said Mr Tillerson had not learnt he was dismissed until he saw Mr Trump’s early-morning tweet. Mr Goldstein was also dismissed soon after.
Mr Tillerson’s departure, the latest in a long line of White House sackings, introduced a number of firsts – the first firing of a US secretary of state after less than 18 months in the job; the first to happen on Twitter; and the first to be revealed to the public before the secretary himself.
Mr Tillerson had just landed in Washington from a weeklong trip to Africa when he was reportedly notified of the dismissal by his Chief of Staff Margaret Peterlin, who showed him Mr Trump’s tweet.
“We disagreed on things,” Mr Trump said – a diplomatic take on a fractious relationship, including reports that Mr Tillerson had privately called the president a moron.
The dismissal of Mr Tillerson is yet another illustration of the gulf that has long separated him and the US president.
The two clashed on several issues, including the Iran nuclear deal, the Paris agreement, North Korea, the Qatar dispute, the Jerusalem embassy move, Nafta negotiations and State Department appointments.
“The secretary had every intention of remaining because of the tangible progress made on critical national security issues,” a statement issued by former aide Mr Goldstein said.
He confirmed that Mr Tillerson had not been informed of the reason for his firing, but that the former secretary of state was “grateful for the opportunity to serve”.
Experts and former US officials in Washington, speaking to The National, did not express shock at the sudden reshuffle.
“It is a real achievement to be too incompetent for the Trump administration, but Rex Tillerson stands out even among the cast of clowns in Trump’s cabinet,” said Ken Gude of the Centre for American Progress.
Mr Tillerson, he said, “will be remembered for his closeness to Vladimir Putin and a disastrous attempt at reorganisation that produced only an exodus of senior diplomats
that leaves the US dangerously ill-equipped to meet the challenges of today’s global security environment.”
Henri Barkey, a former State Department official and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that Mr Tillerson’s departure might be good for the State Department. “He ran the department horribly, did not understand what a public institution does” and could not manage its people.
Under Mr Tillerson a number of senior positions and key embassy appointments remained empty and some prominent diplomats left the department.
“He thought leaving offices empty was a sign of good governance and reduction of excess,” Mr Barkey told The
National. Mr Pompeo “is likely going to be more attuned to the department needs”.
Indeed Mr Pompeo’s views are more aligned with those of Mr Trump. “We’re always on the same wavelength. The relationship has been very good, and that’s what I need as secretary of state,” Mr Trump said.
The incoming secretary of state is expected to bring a more hawkish line on terrorism and Iran.
However, Mr Barkey cautioned against exaggerating the extremes to which Mr Pompeo would go to undermine the European position on the Iran nuclear deal.
“I suspect that he will announce a tougher Iran policy without touching the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, while trying to push back Iranian efforts at destabilising the region.”
Mr Pompeo requested a visa to monitor the Iranian elections in 2016, but the visa was denied. And last year he sent a letter to Iranian Maj Gen Qassem Soleimani, warning of Iran’s destabilising behaviour in Syria and Iraq.
Mr Pompeo is also more combative than his predecessor when it comes to Russia’s interference and US relations with Turkey. He told the BBC in January that Moscow will try to meddle in the US’s midterms in November.
Mr Pompeo “has said some very harsh things about Turkey and Erdogan”, Aaron Stein, of the Atlantic Council, told The National.
Still, Mr Stein said, Mr Pompeo will be “inheriting an effort to make things right with Ankara. The challenge he will face is exactly the challenge that Rex Tillerson is leaving behind: trying to manage the Turkey-PKK [Kurdistan’s Workers Party] conflict in northern Syria.”