Opinion | Break All the Rules (original) (raw)

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/opinion/friedman-break-all-the-rules.html

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Jan. 22, 2013

First, my congratulations and condolences to John Kerry for being nominated to be our next secretary of state. There is no one better for the job today and no worse job to have today. It is no accident that we’ve started measuring our secretaries of state more by miles traveled than milestones achieved. It is bloody hard to do big diplomacy anymore.

Why? Well, as secretary of state today you get to deal with Vladimir Putin, who was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. That is, even though Russia’s economy is hugely corrupt and nowhere nearly as innovative as it should be, Putin sits atop a huge reserve of oil and gas that makes him think he’s a genius and doesn’t need to listen to anyone. When recently confronted with his regime’s bad behavior, his first instinct was to block American parents from adopting Russian orphans, even though so many of them badly need homes. If there were an anti-Nobel Peace Prize, Putin would win hands down.

When Putin isn’t available to stiff us, China, to whom we owe a gazillion dollars, is ready to stand in. Those two are the real nations, where there’s at least someone to answer the phone — and hang up on us. Elsewhere, the secretary of state gets to deal with failed or failing states, like Mali, Algeria, Afghanistan and Libya, whose governments cannot deliver for their people, let alone for us. If he is looking for a break, Kerry could always call on our longtime ally Egypt, whose president, Mohamed Morsi, we find out, in 2010 described Jews as “descendants of apes and pigs.” Who knew?

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Thomas L. FriedmanCredit...Josh Haner/The New York Times

So what’s a secretary of state to do? I’d suggest trying something radically new: creating the conditions for diplomacy where they do not now exist by going around leaders and directly to the people. And I’d start with Iran, Israel and Palestine. We live in an age of social networks in which every leader outside of North Korea today is now forced to engage in a two-way conversation with their citizens. There’s no more just top-down. People everywhere are finding their voices and leaders are terrified. We need to turn this to our advantage to gain leverage in diplomacy.

Let’s break all the rules.

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