Former National Security Advisor Susan Rice on Obama Administration, Trump’s Foreign Policy and Impeachment
According to Rice, the killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani was “a strategic blunder that is going to cost the United States mightily. And the costs will far outweigh the benefits.”
It has been a chaotic few weeks bridging 2019 and 2020… There have been impeachment proceedings in which lifelong foreign service members have been damaged by the administration and Republicans in Congress. President Trump has brought us to the brink of war with Iran citing questionable intelligence.
Detroit Today host Stephen Henderson notes the stark contrast in foreign policy between the current administration and that of former President Obama’s administration, saying that while there was plenty to debate during Obama’s tenure, but there was also a strategy in place and officials who knew what they were doing. Henderson is joined for a conversation by one of them: Former US Ambassador to the United Nations and former National Security Advisor under Barack Obama, Susan Rice.
Rice served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations from 2009 to 2013 and as U.S. National Security Advisor from 2013 to 2017.
She has a new book called “Tough Love,” in which she admits to and recognizes that the decisions made by the Obama administration weren’t perfect. But, she also writes candidly about the desire and aim to do the right thing and how public officials should own up to and learn from their mistakes difficult to remember a time when our foreign policy felt stable and cohesive. On the treatment of foreign service officials during the Trump administration, Rice says she’s “outraged. I’m angry, I’m saddened. I hope this denigration of public servants who have served apolitically is an anomaly.”
She also weighs in on escalating tensions with Iran stemming from the US drone strike that killed Qassem Soleimani: “My judgment was that this was a strategic blunder, it’s going to cost the United States mightily, and that consequences and the costs will far outweigh any benefit of the president’s good feeling that he took a ‘bad guy’ off the battlefield.”
Rice will be in town this weekend for the Detroit Public Library Author Series on Sunday at 2 pm at the main branch on Woodward. The event is free and open to the public.
