Kim Darroch may no longer be Britain’s top man in Washington DC, but that doesn’t mean he has lost friends in the U.S. capital. Indeed, if anything, the abrupt end of Darroch’s long career has only earned him more goodwill.
The outgoing ambassador is now one of the most popular men in Washington after his high-profile falling-out with Donald Trump. And the U.S. foreign policy establishment has rallied around him like a mother bear rallies around her cub—with love and affection. Ex-diplomats and foreign policy officials, from former U.S. State Department veteran Richard Haass to former French Ambassador Gerard Areud have come out in recent days defending Darroch as a man who was punished for simply doing his job and reporting back to his superiors back home. He provided his unvarnished advice to the foreign ministry as he was expected to do when he was appointed for the position. Darroch was a victim of the times, caught between a Washington changed by Trump and a London whose politics have become so dirty they make American politics look like child’s play.
To the Washington Post editorial board, Darroch’s resignation was proof that what the ambassador wrote in his cables was completely accurate. In a June 10 editorial, the Post observed that “any other White House would have overlooked the ambassador’s undiplomatic language rather than damage relations with a close U.S. ally. But not Mr. Trump, who has turned a minor kerfuffle into a major diplomatic incident…”.
Thomas Wright, a senior fellow in one of America’s most prestigious think-tanks, made the point that Darroch is merely the latest victim in Trump’s steamrolling of traditional relationships. “The president’s casual cruelty toward friends and the failure of Darroch’s many friends inside the Trump administration to say anything publicly on his behalf speak volumes about how much value the Trump administration places on alliances,” Wright wrote in the Atlantic. Much of Washington, DC would nod in violent agreement.
Darroch is just one individual. An ambassador resigning wouldn’t ordinarily be a front-page story for more than a day. Nor would it be particularly concerning for other diplomats who have the same job; people come and go every year.
But Darroch’s resignation was different. Why? Because it reconfirmed in the minds of foreign policy professionals observing, dealing with, and perhaps working for the Trump administration that the old rules no longer apply in the Trump era.
Love him or hate him, it’s undeniable that Trump in encased in the thinnest skin you can find around any person on this plane. This is a president, rightly or wrongly, who will do things his own way; discard staffers the moment they are perceived to become disloyal or even boring; and who couldn’t care less about diplomatic protocol or how business was done in the past.
Darroch would very likely have survived if Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, or Barack Obama were still in the White House. But with Trump sitting in the big chair, Darroch didn’t have a chance—especially when Boris Johnson refrained from forcefully defending him.
The experts, pundits, and members of the diplomatic world find all of this quite troubling. Those who are out of government openly encourage members of the president’s inner-circle or immediate family to stage an intervention with him (as if that would help). Others who continue to serve are probably thinking the same thing, but opting to keep quiet.
Like it or not, this is the world we now live in. And as Darroch learned this week, just because it’s shocking doesn’t make it any less real.
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