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Richard Haass Is an Aass

The president of the Council on Foreign Relations warns that the administration’s Jerusalem announcement will lead to diplomatic disaster regarding North Korea. Meanwhile in the real world, Nikki Haley got the Security Council to unanimously endorse the strictest sanctions against Pyongyang to date.

by
Liel Leibovitz
December 26, 2017
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif (right) discusses current developments in the Middle East with Richard N. Haass at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) on July 17, 2017 in New York City.Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif (right) discusses current developments in the Middle East with Richard N. Haass at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) on July 17, 2017 in New York City.Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Richard Haass is an American diplomat, a former Director of Policy Planning at the State Department, and the longtime president of the Council on Foreign Relations. So you would think that Haass is the kind of expert who, when it comes to international affairs, knows what he’s talking about.

Last week, the esteemed ambassador had this to say about the goings-on at the United Nations:

What makes Trump admin think it can act unilaterally on Jerusalem and threaten other governments and UN when US criticized for it-and then expect others to work with the US at the UN to pressure N Korea or Iran? Is nobody thinking strategically about relationships or priorities?



— Richard N. Haass (@RichardHaass) December 22, 2017

Literally as Haass was typing, the administration was shepherding a resolution on North Korea through the UN’s Security Council that posed a new set of sanctions on the rogue nation, strangling its energy supplies and further isolating it. North Korea, said the American ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, “is the most tragic example of evil in the modern world.” The Security Council agreed, passing the resolution 15 to zero and proving once again that the world cats like Haass occupy is a fantasyland of their own creation.

Liel Leibovitz is editor-at-large for Tablet Magazine and a host of its weekly culture podcast Unorthodox and daily Talmud podcast Take One. He is the editor of Zionism: The Tablet Guide.