Richardson gives Haley ‘high marks’
If you didn’t know who Nikki Haley was at the beginning of April, there’s a good chance you do now. Maybe you saw America’s telegenic ambassador to the United Nations on the news on April 5 as she held devastating photos of poisoned Syrian children aloft on the floor of the U.N. In that powerful moment, Haley admonished her Security Council colleagues — especially Russia — for inaction in the face of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s atrocities against his own people.
“How many more children have to die before Russia cares?” Haley asked, breaking with President Donald Trump’s penchant for playing nice with Vladimir Putin’s Assad-friendly regime.
“We cannot close our eyes to those pictures,”
Haley added. “We cannot close our minds of the responsibility to act.”
Action came the very next day when the U.S. dropped 59 Tomahawk missiles on Assad’s airfield in western Syria.
Or maybe you saw Haley’s statement the day after the U.S. strikes, in which she rejected the Bolivian government’s request to hold an emergency U.N. session in private to discuss the matter.
“Any country that chooses to defend the atrocities of the Syrian regime will have to do so in full public view, for all the world to hear,” the outspoken former Republican governor of South Carolina declared.
As President Donald Trump’s administration tries to craft a coherent strategy in warravaged Syria, Haley — more than Secretary of State Rex Tillerson — has become the face of American foreign policy.
It doesn’t usually work that way.
Just ask Bill Richardson, the Democratic former New Mexico governor who served two years as U.N. ambassador for President Bill Clinton during the late 1990s.
In a telephone interview from Santa
Fe last week, Richardson told me that the U.N. ambassador typically serves as a subordinate of the secretary of state by carrying his or her message to the U.N. during sessions in New York, not stealing headlines and news cycles in Washington. But Tillerson, a former ExxonMobile CEO and political novice who admits he has little use for the media, is struggling to fill key vacancies at the State Department, and to find his footing in Foggy Bottom.
Haley, who Richardson said has “a lot of moxie,” is taking advantage of the foreign policy vacuum.
“When I was there, Madeleine Albright, the secretary of state, was the boss, and I had to take directions and instruction from her on policy and media appearances,” Richardson said. “Obviously, Nikki is not doing that with Tillerson, and I think it is because of all of the dysfunction. But I’m not blaming her.”
To the contrary, Richardson said he gives Haley “high marks” for her first 100 days or so in office, and he credits Trump for putting the seasoned politician in the important diplomatic role.
Critics point out that Haley had zero foreign policy experience before taking the U.N. job. Indeed, the former governor may be winging it to a certain extent on the international stage, and that’s real cause for concern. But you can’t deny she has seized the moment.
“As a former U.N. ambassador, I like that. I think you have to be a player, and so far, she’s been a player,” Richardson said. “As a governor, she has political standing, and that’s what you need. When you are perceived by the other countries, they want someone who is political and close to the White House.”
Richardson also cited the 45-year-old Haley’s ethnicity (her parents are Indian-Sikh immigrants) as a major advantage.
“The U.N. is mainly a Third World platform,” he said. “You’ve got the five permanent members of the Security Council (U.S., Russia, China, France and Great Britain), but you’ve really got to be in tune to the Third World. Being Indian-American and being someone with ties to one of the biggest democracies is a positive.
“India is one of the biggest economic and political powers in Asia, and they are big players in the U.N. on a bunch of issues — nuclear nonproliferation, energy, issues related to poverty,” Richardson added.
The former U.S. energy secretary said he agreed with Trump’s decision to strike the Assad regime after its latest poison gas attack, and that he backs Haley’s vocal push for regime change.
“Her statements have been timely, and they are the right policy positions, in my view, especially the ones about regime change in Syria, and especially about issues related to human rights in Syria and the bombing,” he said. “She’s got a good political press sense.”
That’s not to say Haley’s execution has been flawless.
Richardson, who has been known to make the occasional impolitic remark himself, said the ambassador sometimes comes on a little too strong. Trotting out a line she had used on a previous book tour, Haley told a meeting of the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee in late March that she wears high heels, “not as a fashion statement” but so she can “kick” wrongdoers at the U.N.
“She has made some remarks that were not helpful,” Richardson said. “Early on, she said she was taking names of all of the countries that don’t support us, and that is not good because we’re going to need those votes.
“Those are minor errors, but you don’t say that when you are in an international forum and you need the votes of 195 people.”
There’s no disputing that Haley is stepping out of the traditional box reserved for the U.N. ambassador. But there is still only so much she can do. Richardson said it’s up to Trump to explain to Americans — and the world — what the U.S. endgame is in Syria.
“I think the president needs to address the nation on our policy in Syria, given all of the confusing signals being sent,” Richardson said. “Nikki Haley can’t do that. Only the president can do that.”