Long, positive article about Kerry as Secretary of State

[karynnj]

http://www.vogue.com/1414623/john-kerry-secretary-of-state/

The article is written by a reporter who traveled with him on the trip to France last summer and it covers both his accomplishments and him as a person.

It is hard to pick 4 comments, but here goes:

On the job:
That long game has brought a kind of vindication. Today President Obama’s foreign policy happens to look much like Kerry proposed America’s should during the campaign in 2004: more modest, more interested in multilateral diplomacy and fighting terrorism on a case-by-case basis. Kerry praises what he calls President Obama’s “very careful, hard-nosed approach” to decision-making. “I am impressed by the questions he asks . . . and how he wants to know the strategy and the facts that support that choice before he makes it—not afterward.”
<snip>

“He listens well,” says Ryan Crocker, former ambassador to Iraq, of Kerry’s diplomatic style. “He will listen to his interlocutors, understand their viewpoint, and make his points within the context of where they stand. That kind of empathy goes a long way to creating a climate in which compromise and agreement become possible. And he also has a reputation for absolute honesty and integrity. He never misleads, and he’s known for it.”

As this is DU JK, it seems right to add these two more personal pieces:

Peals of laughter can be heard from his plane cabin when Kerry FaceTimes with his daughter Vanessa, a critical-care physician in Boston, and his two-and-a-half-year-old grandson, Alexander. Kerry’s other daughter, Alexandra, a film director, recently had a baby girl. “He’s been awesome, actually,” Vanessa says of Kerry as grandfather. “I have left him alone to babysit Alexander, which makes me feel really guilty. I remember asking him, ‘What are you going to do if the prime minister of Israel calls?’ And he said, ‘I’ll figure it out.’ ”

“We have many late-night and early-morning phone calls, and John takes every opportunity to get home,” reports his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, whom he married in 1995 and who quickly became known for her outspokenness and humor on the campaign trail. Now 75, she suffered a seizure last summer while vacationing on Nantucket, and has been keeping out of the public eye through her recovery. “I have learned so much about the brain and the time it takes to recover from a seizure such as mine,” she adds. “I feel blessed to have the support of my husband—who quite literally lay beside me in my hospital bed last year.”

[grahamhgreen]

1. SOS Success, in my view, is measured by the ability to solve problems diplomatically.

[karynnj]

2. True - and Kerry has had major successes there - and others that may become bigger successes

However, it is always impossible to know what was possible. Therefore, Kerry is right in saying that he just does his job and history will define any legacy.

There is, however, one other metric. Does he help the President advance his goals. Here the clearest things that he does deserve credit for include that he was the key person in both getting Iraq to move to a more inclusive government with Maliki peacefully stepping aside and creating a coalition that includes many regional countries. It is also significant that about 60 countries have joined and the UN unanimously passed a resolution that will impede the travel of ISIS warriors and their finances. You might look back to the June coverage when Obama spoke of wanting both of these things done. To put it mildly, few gave him much chance to accomplish these things.

Whether YOU agree with those goals or not, they were Obama's goals - and Kerry was the man who led on getting them to this point. I watched the UN session Kerry led (as well as the later Obama coverage) and what was clear is that many representatives went far beyond diplomatic courtesy in praising Kerry's hard work on this.

There is also the fact that Kerry was instrumental in brokering a solution to Afghanistan's election. Again, YOU might have preferred he fail, the country go into civil war - on the hopes that the US would leave faster than otherwise. Here, again, what Kerry accomplished was American policy.

Not to mention, though you prefer to credit Putin, who had never previously had any intention to remove any Syrian weapons, Kerry was the man who negotiated the deal with Lavrov and when both the US and Russia tried to get a UN agreement more to their liking, worked with Lavrov to get a UN declaration that passed the UN. There is no doubt that this agreement removed tons of chemical weapons from an unstable area.

[YvonneCa]

4. I would add that he was also instrumental...

...in making the foreign policy connection to the issue of climate change. If in future years, global actions are taken widely toward cleaner energy sources, Kerry will be one of the leaders responsible for putting that issue on the world's agenda.

Thanks for the link karynnj. I truly enjoyed the Vogue article.

[mylye2222]

3. many French pols and diplomats

mainly from the left wing side has praised JKs ability to look at international issues not only as folders pilling his desk ..but on an Mensh based visionnary.