Israel Matzav

The next US Secretary of State?

Say it isn't so. Could this actually be the next US Secretary of State (Hat Tip: Barak Ravid)?

Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry met during his visit to Washington Wendy Sherman, an adviser to the US Democratic Party's presidential primary candidate Hillary Clinton, the foreign affairs ministry announced on Thursday.

The Egyptian foreign ministry spokesperson Ahmed Abu Zeid stated that during the meeting Sherman listened to Shoukry's evaluations of political and economic developments taking place in Egypt, the country's regional and international relations, as well as the country's efforts to fight terrorism.

"The meeting reflected the mutual wish to enforce Egyptian-American relations if Hillary Clinton wins the US presidential elections," the foreign ministry statement read.

Sherman noted that she was ready to transfer any message from the Egyptian side that would enforce the US's relationship with Egypt to Hilary Clinton, Abu Zeid said in the statement. 

The name Wendy Sherman should ring a bell to all of you. A nuclear bell. In 1994, the Clinton administration signed a deal that it claimed would stop North Korea from developing nuclear weapons. The deal was negotiated by Wendy Sherman, the same Democratic party hack who was the chief concessionaire to Iran. North Korea abrogated the agreement when it felt able to do so, and has gone on to test nuclear weapons. Iran has participated in North Korea's nuclear tests.

Sherman is a total incompetent who was in way over her head. Even the Obama administration has no confidence in Sherman, who is nothing but a hack. (Look how many times they sent John Kerry to Vienna during the Iran negotiations). Here's Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal nearly three years ago.

In 1988, the former social worker ran the Washington office of the Dukakis campaign and worked at the Democratic National Committee. That was the year the Massachusetts governor carried 111 electoral votes to George H.W. Bush's 426. In the mid-1990s, Ms. Sherman was briefly the CEO of something called the Fannie Mae Foundation, supposedly a charity that was shut down a decade later for what the Washington Post called "using tax-exempt contributions to advance corporate interests."

From there it was on to the State Department, where she served as a point person in nuclear negotiations with North Korea and met with Kim Jong Il himself. The late dictator, she testified, was "witty and humorous," "a conceptual thinker," "a quick problem-solver," "smart, engaged, knowledgeable, self-confident." Also a movie buff who loved Michael Jordan highlight videos. A regular guy!

Later Ms. Sherman was to be found working for her former boss as the No. 2 at the Albright-Stonebridge Group before taking the No. 3 spot at the State Department. Ethics scolds might describe the arc of her career as a revolving door between misspending taxpayer dollars in government and mooching off them in the private sector. But it's mainly an example of failing up—the Washingtonian phenomenon of promotion to ever-higher positions of authority and prestige irrespective of past performance.

This administration in particular is stuffed with fail-uppers—the president, the vice president, the secretary of state and the national security adviser, to name a few—and every now and then it shows. Like, for instance, when people for whom the test of real-world results has never meant very much meet people for whom that test means everything.

Two years ago, Sherman accused Israel of making the Iran talks 'harder.'

In what appeared to be a warning to Israel, she said the United States hopes no one will interfere with the talks.

"We don't enter these talks with rose-colored glasses and we don't know yet if we can resolve this diplomatically," Sherman said, according to Haaretz.

"It will be critical that our negotiators and partners have the space to get this done diplomatically. The talks with Iran will be very hard and we can't afford to make it even harder."

Haaretz also quoted her as having stressed that Iran’s nuclear program would have to be "limited, discreet, constrained, monitored and verified." [All the things that it clearly isn't in 2016. CiJ]

If the Iranian nuclear enrichment program does not meet these conditions there will be no agreement, Sherman added.

She noted that the United States "would like there to be zero enrichment" but that is an "unlikely" expectation.

From social worker to Secretary of State? What could go wrong?

Labels: Hillary Clinton, Iranian nuclear threat, North Korea, US presidential campaign 2016, US State Department, Wendy Sherman

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:24 PM