Rewarding friends with high posts in the US administration Trump continues to undermine confidence in the security of the United States
After the bizarre election of former soldier and current Fox News host (more precisely, Trump’s favorite Fox & Friends Weekend show) Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense (we wrote about it here), the future president of the United States made other controversial choices for various positions of power within his administration. While Marco Rubio for the position of Secretary of State is a “hawkish” choice, it is nevertheless completely understandable given Rubio’s experience, the others no longer make sense.
The special envoy for the Middle East will be Steven Witkoff, who should deal primarily with critical areas of friction within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and act as a mediator between various factions within Middle Eastern politics. It has one problem. Witkoff is not well-known in diplomatic circles, nor has anyone heard of him in terms of Middle Eastern expertise. No wonder. He is a rich real estate broker.
Witkoff has no professional experience that would predispose him to the role of Middle East envoy, except that he plays golf with Trump, is among his longtime friends and has praised his administration’s actions in the area of Israel. We don’t know anything about his positions on Middle East politics, other than the fact that he is an enthusiastic admirer of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, although he has never met him in person, only listening to him speak to Congress, which he described as a “spiritual experience.”
The new wave of appointees raises questions especially among military and security experts. While Witkoff may be ineffective at best in his new role, but is unlikely to directly threaten stability in the Middle East, the appointment of Hegseth to the role of head of the world’s most powerful military shocked military and political experts. At a time when the war in Ukraine is being resolved, Russia’s asymmetric war with the West using disinformation and influencing important persons, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict threatens to escalate further, and China is further establishing itself as one of the world’s major players, the appointment of the inexperienced Hegseth is a major weakness as for the United States, as well as a breach in the confidence of the allies.
Source: zpravy.tiscali.cz
