by Zack Beauchamp
James Traub has an excellent profile of John Kerry's role in the White House's foreign policy. A lot of the piece is positive but, to Traub's credit, he doesn't spare Kerry when he thinks the Senator (and, in Traub's estimation, likely Secretary of State) screwed up:
Kerry bridled when I raised the issue [of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad] with him. “I never said to anybody this guy is a domestic reformer,” he said. “This was an external opportunity.” The first statement appears to be literally true, though the distinction was scarcely obvious at the time. But the second point is the key to Kerry’s view. Geopolitical thinkers going back to Henry Kissinger have had visions of Syria as the linchpin of a transformed Middle East. Kerry shared this hope, and he tried to persuade Assad to make sufficient concessions for Israel to agree to restart indirect talks that had faltered in late 2008. Kerry says that he did, indeed, succeed in moving Assad further than he had before. Perhaps he did, but Syria is a kind of shimmering mirage that beckons to, and then disappoints, ambitious strategists. What’s more, Kerry’s diplomatic craftsmanship may have blinded him to the upheaval that would topple some of the dictators he had long cultivated and discredit others. In this case, that is, “engagement” may have been the status quo policy, not the breakthrough one.
Ackerman zooms in on how Secretary Kerry would handle the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The Dish 