Can Mike Pompeo fix Trump?

Tillerson sank without a trace on U.S.-Israel relations. Will Pompeo as secretary of state take back the Mideast brief Kushner has made his private fiefdom?

Daniel B. Shapiro | Mar. 14, 2018

Rex Tillerson was a titan of American industry, a man who ran a company with virtually its own foreign policy. But as U.S. secretary of state, the job that is supposed to come with vast influence over the nation’s foreign policy, he left nary a trace. On the U.S.-Israel relationship, his impact was nonexistent.

Though a man of obvious patriotism, talent and decency, his tenure was marked by several fatal flaws. He cut himself off from the State Department’s talent pool, the professional foreign service, declining their advice or even to hear it presented, and cloistering himself behind a small team of gatekeepers. He further squandered the goodwill of the agency he led by refusing to defend it from draconian budget cuts and allowing consultants to monopolize vast amounts of people’s time pursuing obvious or pointless management reforms.

But what made him truly the least effective secretary of state in memory was his strained relationship with President Donald Trump.

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Daniel B. Shapiro is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and former United States Ambassador to Israel (2011-2017). Follow him on Twitter: @DanielBShapiro

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