Washington – Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday warned about the rise of a “factless political environment” in which policy is made on Twitter and said President-elect Donald Trump’s “America First” policy could lead to a U.S. retreat from the world. He also lamented a lack of contact with the incoming Trump administration.
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At a conference focused on national security and the presidential transition, Kerry rejected criticism that the Obama administration had failed to lead in dealing with world crises. “We’ve been leading,” he said, pointing to the Iran nuclear deal, the Paris climate change agreement, response to the Ebola virus, strengthening NATO and his own unsuccessful efforts to end Syria’s civil war. He said charges that the administration mishandled the Arab Spring revolts against authoritarian leaders were wrong.
“People are not separating a remarkable transformation that is taking place globally from things that we are really responsible for,” Kerry said, blasting what he called “revisionist commentary” from critics. “We didn’t start the Arab Spring, we couldn’t have stopped the Arab Spring. There is no way the Obama administration doing anything would have changed what was happening in those countries.”
Tuesday’s event at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington is titled “Passing the Baton” and focuses on how the Trump administration will take the reins from President Barack Obama. Obama and Trump’s national security advisers, Susan Rice and Michael Flynn, were to appear after Kerry.
With only 10 days left in his tenure, Obama’s top diplomat called for a new “Marshall Plan” to help countries in critical regions around the world educate their exploding youth populations and prevent them from being radicalized.
Lack of education and the spread of misinformation, notably online, are serious threats that must be confronted to prevent a rise of “authoritarian populism” that threatens the international order, Kerry said. He accused Russia of mounting a “”horrendous invasion of our democratic process” by interfering in the 2016 presidential election and said such actions must be combatted.
“One of the greatest challenges we all face right now, not just America but every country, is that we are living in a factless political environment,” Kerry said. “Every country in the world better stop and start worrying about authoritarian populism and the absence of substance in our dialogue.”
He did not mention Trump by name but took a thinly veiled shot at the president-elect’s propensity to tweet his views on policy issues.
“If policy is going to be made in 140 characters on Twitter and every reasonable measure of accountability is being bypassed and people don’t care about it, we have a problem,” Kerry said.
He said he worried that the incoming administration’s “America First” slogan might translate into “turning away” from a vast array of challenges the world faces, particularly climate change.
On the State Department’s transition, Kerry half-jokingly said it was going “pretty smoothly” because “there is not an enormous amount of it.”
He said he had yet to meet Trump’s choice to replace him as America’s top diplomat, Exxon Mobil chief Rex Tillerson. He said he expects to do so “in the near term” and still believes there is time for “an ample debriefing” before the new administration begins.
Kerry your a embarrassment!
Get lost.
And you have no class to talk about next administration.
Sore loser!
“He said charges that the administration mishandled the Arab Spring revolts against authoritarian leaders were wrong.”
Oh really?? Is everything going great in Libya, Iraq and Syria. How did Egypt turn out? Thank g-d Al-Sisi saved Egypt from doom. To be honest the raq mistake in it of itself could be excused. (It was after 9/11 we were a bit over zelous. Not an excuse but mistakes happen) Obviously, retrospectively it was a big mistake. But did Obama and Hillary learn any lessons from the Iraq mistake. Wasn’t Qaddafi behaving and getting rid of his nukes? Why did we chuck him? Whats our end game in Syria? Do you still believe ” moderate rebels” can govern and defeat ISIL, Syria and Al-Nusra all at once???
You should not Report any longer what this Antisemite Kerry has to say – he is a liar par excellence- he and his buddy Hussein Obama destroyed American leadership in the world directly caused the death of hundreds of thousands of Syrians by going back on their promises created a situation where Allies cannot rely on the US and we know what he did to Israel, so why quote what this looser has to say – good riddance Kerry! History will judge you as a major failure You are not an American Hero but a miserable Looser!
“we are living in a factless political environment”
Another great line. Because human contribution towards climate change is a fact??? Yes the world has been warm over the past number of years. But prove that humans contribute to that? Is that simply because you have a correlation between CO2 emissions and global warming? So correlation became causation? And please prove that global warming causes more storms too.
Climate change is about as factual as evolution.
Nobody is interested to hear your idiotic thoughts, u got no common sense , unless u are a puppet of our Muslim president (TNX god he is gone by next week)
I couldn’t agree more with all the above comments!
I couldn’t agree more with all the above comments!
Baal Keri you are a huge failure with a smooth mouth. You stabbed Israel in the back and you will pay dearly for that…. there is divine justice. The world is a mess with all our friends realizing that America cannot be trusted. Remember Obama’s LIE that if the Syrian’s use poison gas…..and you did nothing. Putin fought for his friend Assad. The messsage: Russia is reliable and Obama and Kerry are a glib team of untrustworthy liars.