SPECIAL FEATURE
A VERY BRITISH FINALE MAY STANDS BY HER MAN
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n July, German Ambassador Emily Haber posted a tweet of herself posing with her French, European Union and U.K. counterparts (Philippe Etienne, Stavros Lambrinidis, Sir Kim Darroch respectively). “Honored to host my colleagues and friends from the United Kingdom, France, and the European Union, for breakfast at my residence this morning,” the tweet said. Left unsaid in Haber’s tweet was any reference to the fact that Darroch had resigned his post the previous day in the most serious diplomatic incident to roil the U.S.-U.K. bi-lateral relationship in many years, and Haber’s action was seen as a subtle message of solidarity by some of the British ambassador’s European colleagues. In scathing confidential telegrams to the Foreign Office in London over many months, Darroch had called the White House a “uniquely dysfunctional environment” and said Trump “radiates insecurity,” made speeches full of “false claims and invented statistics,” and was indebted to “dodgy Russians.” Many other ambassadors had said as much in similar telegrams to their respective governments, but Darroch had been revealed doing it. Trump went ballistic, calling Darroch “stupid.” The president’s eruption, observed William Burns, a former senior U.S. diplomat and current president of the Carnegie International Institute for Peace, merely “reinforced the accuracy of Darroch’s portrait of him.” But more than that, it brought into sharper focus some of the new realities that face foreign ambassadors in Washington under Trump. Firstly, in diplomacy as in practically everything else, it’s goodbye to businessas-usual: the White House attaches little or no importance to following diplomatic practice, and has its own unique approach to international relations.
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In Darroch’s case, for example, normal practice—not to mention common sense— would have required the State Department to try and find a diplomatic way out of the situation. Instead, a vindictive Trump jumped in, announcing, “We will not deal with” Darroch. The president himself had
effectively declared the ambassador of the United Kingdom—a historic ally—persona non grata, leaving him no option but to resign. The British government, keen to retain Trump’s support in Brexit, avoided escalating the incident. London’s defense of its ambassador was more formal than earnest, and he was quite possibly encouraged to withdraw. Much of bi-lateral diplomacy is based on reciprocity, and London could have pushed back by summoning the U.S. ambassador and lodging a formal complaint, or even expelling him altogether in a tit-fortat gesture. But there was no protest from Downing Street at the time. Then-Prime
Minister Theresa May praised Darroch— even as she accepted his resignation. London’s real response came in September when Kim Darroch was made a life peer —a member of the House of Lords. It was an unusual honor usually reserved for diplomats who rise to head the British foreign service, but it sent a signal to Trump what London thought of his rough handling of its envoy. Secondly, the Darroch narrative showed how Trump’s personalization of foreign policy allows only one go-to source for major decisions, and their implementation. Air-kissing Kellyanne Conway on both cheeks at diplomatic functions is all very well—if it delivers the goods. But in the Trump administration, only one set of cheeks does that—Donald Trump’s. Thirdly, in the era of Wikileaks and hostile-state cyber warfare the diplomatic telegram’s primacy is under threat and senior diplomats need to find more secure ways of analyzing events with the candor and openness their superiors expect of them. Depending to which ambassador you talk to, What’sApp messages, telephone briefings, the anonymity of airport computer stations, private email accounts outside of official systems where the risk of exposure by rivals is not so great are all being used to communicate with governments. Actually, Darroch’s criticism of Trump and his administration was not the first. That distinction goes to former French Ambassador Gérard Araud in May of this year. Araud sparked little reaction from Trump, in part because he was also critical of Barrack Obama, describing him as too intellectual and aloof; but also because he compared a dysfunctional White House with the court of Louis XIV—and Trump was not going to complain about being compared to a king of France. Or any other king for that matter.
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