The Washington Post editorial board is miffed at John Kerry. Why? Because he had the audacity, the sheer gall, to chat with the Venezuelan Foreign Minister and to suggest it might be a good idea to have ambassadors. Somehow this is taken as a ringing endorsement of Nicolás Maduro. A "lifeline" even! I guess Kerry's words will make Venezuelans forget they have no toilet paper.
This demonstrates how far we've descended in diplomatic terms. For all the Ronald Reagan glorification, people seem to forget he actively engaged with the Soviet Union, including meeting personally with Gorbachev in 1985. Later, they even signed treaties, even though Gorbachev didn't do exactly what the U.S. wanted. Nobody mistook this for Reagan's approval of the Soviet regime.
Venezuela today doesn't even qualify as an adversary, much less an enemy, yet dialogue gets criticized from the right. Kerry wasn't even agreeing to anything beyond normal diplomatic ties. It is self-defeating and nonsensical to label basic diplomatic dialogue as endorsement of a particular government.
No comments:
Post a Comment