President Trump had been threatening to sack Rex Tillerson since he found out soon after appointing the former EXXON-Mobil chief as the Secretary of State that he had a personality and was not adept at sycophancy. The news of the sacking came via one of the US president's famous tweets - perhaps better to call these infamous now - in which he not just conveyed his decision to sack Tillerson but also to appoint the CIA boss Mike Pompeo as the new Secretary of State. And in that tweet, he also appointed Gina Haspel as the CIA boss and predicted that the new Secretary of State would do a "fantastic job" and congratulated himself for appointing Gina Haspel to become the first woman chief of the CIA!
Rex Tillerson must have expected his fate for as long as he was the Secretary as does almost all of Trump administration's top appointees. Some Trump has fired in the manner he would fire on the TV reality show The Apprentice that had brought him to the limelight by simply saying "you're fired" while others resigned seeing what fate awaited them if they did not. Rex Tillerson joined a huge list of such top appointees of the US president that he has fired or forced to resign that no other two-term president even came close to - and he has just completed his first year in office.
Those who entered and left the Donald Trump administration since January 2017 when Rex Tillerson took office to the moment he was sacked, included National Security Adviser General Michael Flynn, FBI Director James Comey, Chief Strategist in Trump administration Steve Bannon, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Press Secretary Sean Spicer, Health Secretary Tom Price, Top Economic Adviser Gary Cohn, etcetera, etcetera. That a US President without any experience in politics or in federal administration in any capacity - a virgin in national politics and federal administration - would indulge in such hiring and firing like he was still running his reality show The Apprentice and not the US presidency is the stuff of a nightmare for the United States.
The manner of Rex Tillerson's firing was also strange. The president conveyed it by a tweet message in which he also included the decision of the new Secretary of State and the new CIA Director. The Secretary had just returned the previous night from an official overseas trip and had gone to his office for his daily work when he read the tweet! The news was later confirmed by the White House Chief of Staff.
Rex Tillerson was waiting in the exit lounge of the Trump administration precariously after he had called him a "moron" in July in a tense meeting at the Pentagon; a comment that he did not deny and one that was never resolved satisfactorily. Nevertheless, he had continued in the post for many months since then. There were also serious differences on foreign policy matters between him and the President although it is now a matter for serious deliberation whether President Donald Trump values or understands matters of statecraft or foreign policy more than whatever comes to his mind early in the morning every day when he wakes up with Washington asleep and plays his game of tweets with the Americans.
Nevertheless, now that he has appointed a new Secretary of State who would have to wait for Senate confirmation, the decision to fire Tillerson will have a direct impact on serious US foreign policy issues. Tillerson had stood firm against taking the US out of the Iran nuclear deal, the Climate Accord and had favoured diplomacy against conflict on North Korea. The new secretary has well-known position on these issues which is opposed to those of Tillerson. He would be expected to encourage the President on his weird ways of dealing with these issues than Rex Tillerson.
Rex Tillerson, who was confirmed by the Senate easily that was unusual for an appointee of President Trump, was not the best Secretary of State by quite some margin. In his one year in office, he was unable to take on board the professionals in the State Department where he had left many major posts unfilled while cutting down the Department's budget significantly. He tried to run the State Department like he had Exxon-Mobil, a mega oil company that had the financial muscle more powerful than many important nations of the world. But he found out to his dismay that running a mega oil company and the state department are in different leagues. Running the state department needed qualifications he simply did not possess.
Nevertheless, his departure will bring further turmoil and uncertainty to the Trump administration where the Secretary of State as the fourth in the line of succession is a key figure. Furthermore, as the country's contact point with the world where its dominance and leadership are vital for US' success on the world stage, Tillerson was able to keep sanity while his boss was prepared to ravage it with insanity. With the new Secretary's known hawkish stands on key international issues where sanity would be required, the United States and the rest of the world must now sit back and watch where the new Secretary takes the United States.
If there is a board or authority anywhere that edits the English Thesaurus, it should seriously consider adding the word "trumpish" as a new synonym for the word "absurdity." America has championed itself as the best of almost everything in human activities and endeavours and in most cases, rightly so. In doing so, it had been proud and haughty, never caring about its criticisms of leaders worldwide about their human ways. The Americans were particularly adept in laughing, ridiculing and belittling the third world leaders, like, for instance, Idi Amin of Uganda, or Muammar Gadhafi of Libya in a long list of such leaders. The shoe is now on the other foot and around the world capitals, including those in the developing world, people are not just laughing and ridiculing the new US president but also wondering where President Donald Trump is leading his country.
At least in one capital, it is now bonanza time. China that undoubtedly wants to replace the USA as the leader of the world could not have hoped to weaken the USA in the manner that President Donald Trump is succeeding - and effortlessly, not with wars and weapons but with tweets!
The writer is a former Ambassador.
