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<\/a><\/p>\nNikki Haley is America\u2019s face to the international community. She is the Ugly American personified, thinking that American Exceptionalism gives her license to say and do whatever she wants at the United Nations, argues Phil Giraldi in this commentary.<\/span><\/p>\n By Phil Giraldi<\/b><\/p>\n The musical chairs playing out among the senior officials that make up the President Donald Trump White House team would be amusing to watch but for the genuine damage that it is doing to the United States. The lack of any coherence in policy means that the State Department now has diplomats that do not believe in diplomacy and environment agency heads that do not believe in protecting the environment. It also means that well-funded and disciplined lobbies and pressure groups are having a field day, befuddling ignorant administrators with their \u201cfact sheets\u201d and successfully promoting policies that benefit no one but themselves.<\/p>\n <\/a>In the Trumpean world of all-the-time-stupid, there is, however, one individual who stands out for her complete inability to perceive anything beyond threats of unrelenting violence combined with adherence to policies that have already proven to be catastrophic. That person is our own Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who surfaced in the news lately after she unilaterally and evidently prematurely announced sanctions on Russia. When the White House suggested that she might have been \u201cconfused\u201d she responded that \u201cWith all due respect, I don\u2019t get confused.\u201d This ignited a firestorm among the Trump haters,\u00a0lauding Haley<\/a>\u00a0as a strong and self-confident woman for standing up to the White House male bullies while also suggesting that the hapless Administration had not bothered to inform one of its senior diplomats of a policy change. It also produced a flurry of Haley for higher office tweets based on what was described as her \u201cbrilliant\u00a0riposte<\/i>\u201d to the president.<\/p>\n <\/a>One over-the-top\u00a0bit of effusion<\/a>\u00a0from a former Haley aide even suggested that her \u201cdeft rebuttal\u201d emphasizes her qualities, enthusing that \u201cWhat distinguishes her from the star-struck sycophants in the White House is that she understands the intersection of strong leadership and public service, where great things happen\u201d and placing her on what is being promoted as the short list of future presidential candidates.<\/p>\n <\/a>For sure, neocon barking dog Bill Kristol has for years\u00a0been promoting<\/a>\u00a0Haley for president, a sign that something is up as he was previously the one who \u201cdiscovered\u201d Sarah Palin. Indeed, the similarities between the two women are readily observable. Neither is very cerebral or much given to make any attempt to understand an adversary\u2019s point of view; both are reflexively aggressive and dismissive when dealing with foreigners and domestic critics; both are passionately anti-Russian and pro-Israeli. And Kristol is not alone in his advocacy. Haley regularly receives praise from Senators like South Carolina\u2019s Lindsey Graham and from the Murdoch media as well as\u00a0in the opinion pages<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0National Review<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0The Weekly Standard.<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/em>She\u2019s Locked and Loaded<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/a>The greater problem right now is that Nikki Haley is America\u2019s face to the international community, even more than the Secretary of State. She has used her bully pulpit to do just that, i.e. bully, and she is ugly America personified, having apparently decided that something called American Exceptionalism gives her license to say and do whatever she wants at the United Nations. In her mind, the United States can do what it wants globally because it has a God-given right to do so, a viewpoint that doesn\u2019t go down well with many countries that believe that they have a legal and moral right to be left alone and remain exempt from America\u2019s all too frequent military interventions.<\/p>\n Haley: Locked and Loaded (UN Poto)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/a>Nikki Haley sees things differently, however. During her 15 months at the United Nations she has been instrumental in cutting funding for programs that she disapproves of and has repeatedly threatened military action against countries that disagree with U.S. policies. Most recently, in the wake of the U.S. cruise missile attack against Syria, she announced that the action was potentially only the first step. She declared that Washington was \u201clocked and loaded,\u201d prepared to exercise more lethal military options if Syria and its Russian and Iranian supporters did not cease and desist from the use of chemical weapons. Ironically, the cruise missile attack was carried out even though the White House had no clue as to what had actually happened and it now turns out that the entire story, spread by the terrorist groups in Syria and their mouthpieces,\u00a0has begun to unravel<\/a>. Will Nikki Haley apologize? I would suspect that if she doesn\u2019t do confusion she doesn\u2019t do apologies either.<\/p>\n <\/a>Haley, who had no foreign policy experience of any kind prior to assuming office, relies on a gaggle of neoconservative foreign-policy \u201cexperts\u201d to help shape her public utterances, which are often not cleared with the State Department, where she is at least nominally employed. Her speechwriter is Jessica Gavora, who is the wife of the leading neoconservative journalist Jonah Goldberg. Unfortunately, being a neocon mouthpiece makes her particularly dangerous as she is holding a position where she can do bad things. She has been shooting from the lip since she assumed office with only minimal vetting by the Trump Administration, and, as in the recent imbroglio over her \u201cconfusion,\u201d it is never quite clear whether she is speaking for herself or for the White House.<\/p>\n She Has Her Own Foreign Policy<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/a>Haley has her own foreign policy. She\u00a0has declared that<\/a>\u00a0Russia \u201cis not, will not be our friend\u201d and has lately described the Russians as having their hands covered with the blood of Syrian children. From the start of her time at the U.N., Haley has made it clear that she is neoconservatism personified and she has done nothing since to change that impression. In December 2017 she warned the U.N. that she was \u201ctaking names\u201d and threatened retaliation against any country that was so \u201cdisrespectful\u201d as to dare to vote against Washington\u2019s disastrous recognition of Jerusalem as Israel\u2019s capital, which she also helped to bring about.<\/p>\n <\/a>As governor of South Carolina, Haley first became identified as an unquestioning\u00a0supporter of Israel<\/a>\u00a0through her signing of a bill punishing supporters of the nonviolent pro-Palestinian\u00a0Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions<\/a>\u00a0(BDS) movement, the first legislation of its kind on a state level. Immediately upon taking office at the United Nations she complained that \u201cnowhere has the U.N.\u2019s failure been more consistent and more outrageous than in its bias against our close ally Israel\u201d and vowed that the \u201cdays of Israel bashing are over.\u201d On a recent visit to Israel, she was feted and\u00a0honored<\/a>\u00a0by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. She was also greeted by rounds of applause and cheering when she spoke at the annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in March, saying \u201cWhen I come to AIPAC I am with friends.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a>Nikki Haley\u2019s embrace of Israeli points of view is unrelenting and serves no American interest. If she were a recruited agent of influence for the Israeli Mossad she could not be more cooperative than she apparently is voluntarily. In February 2017, she blocked the appointment of former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to a diplomatic position at the United Nations because he is a Palestinian. In a\u00a0congressional hearing<\/a>\u00a0she was asked about the decision: \u201cIs it this administration\u2019s position that support for Israel and support for the appointment of a well-qualified individual of Palestinian nationality to an appointment at the U.N. are mutually exclusive?\u201d Haley responded yes, that the administration is \u201csupporting Israel\u201d by blocking every Palestinian.<\/p>\n She\u2019s Decided She Wants Regime Change<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/a>Haley is particularly highly critical of both Syria and Iran, reflecting the Israeli bias. She has repeatedly said that\u00a0regime change in Damascus<\/a>\u00a0is a Trump administration priority, even when the White House was saying something different. She has elaborated on an Administration\u00a0warning that<\/a>\u00a0it had \u201cidentified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime\u201d\u00a0by tweeting<\/a>\u00a0\u201c\u2026further attacks will be blamed on Assad but also on Russia and Iran who support him killing his own people.\u201d At one point,\u00a0Haley warned<\/a>\u00a0\u201cWe need to see Russia choose to side with the civilized world over an Assad government that brutally terrorizes its own people.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a>At various U.N. meetings, though Haley has repeatedly and uncritically complained of institutional bias towards Israel, she has never addressed the issue that Israel\u2019s treatment of the Palestinians might in part be responsible for the criticism leveled against it. Her description of Israel as a \u201cclose ally\u201d is hyperbolic and she tends to be oblivious to actual American interests in the region when Israel is involved. She has never challenged the Israeli occupation of the West Bank as well as the recent large expansion of settlements, which are at least nominally opposed by the State Department and White House. Nor has she spoken up about the more recent shooting of three thousand unarmed Gazan demonstrators by Israeli Army sharpshooters, which is a war crime.<\/p>\n <\/a>Haley\u2019s hardline on Syria reflects the Israeli bias, and her consistent hostility to Russia is a neoconservative position. A White House\u00a0warning that<\/a>\u00a0it had \u201cidentified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime led to a\u00a0Haley elaboration<\/a>\u00a0in a tweet that \u201c\u2026further attacks will be blamed on Assad but also on Russia and Iran who support him killing his own people.\u201d Earlier, on April 12, 2017 after Russia blocked a draft U.N. resolution intended to condemn the alleged Khan Shaykhun chemical attack, which subsequently turned out to be a false flag,\u00a0Haley said<\/a>, \u201cWe need to see Russia choose to side with the civilized world over an Assad government that brutally terrorizes its own people.\u201d<\/p>\n Bolton: Not as bad.as Nikki. (Photo: Gage Skidmore)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Haley is particularly critical of Iran, which she sees as the instigator of much of the unrest in the Middle East, again reflecting the Israeli and neocon viewpoints. She claimed on April 20, 2017 during her first session as president of the U.N. Security Council, that Iran and Hezbollah had \u201cconducted terrorist acts\u201d for decades within the Middle East, ignoring the more serious terrorism support engaged in by U.S. regional allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar. She\u00a0stated in June 2017<\/a>\u00a0that the Security Council\u2019s praise of the Iran Nuclear Agreement honored a state that has engaged in \u201cillicit missile launches,\u201d \u201csupport for terrorist groups,\u201d and \u201carms smuggling,\u201d while \u201cstok[ing] regional conflicts and mak[ing] them harder to solve.\u201d All are perspectives that might easily be challenged.<\/p>\n <\/a>So, Nikki Haley very much comes across as the neoconservatives\u2019 dream ambassador to the United Nations\u2013full of aggression, a staunch supporter of Israel, and assertive of Washington\u2019s preemptive right to set standards for the rest of the world. And there is every reason to believe that she would nurture the same views if she were to become the neocon dream president. Bearing the flag for American Exceptionalism does not necessarily make her very good for the rest of us, who will have to bear the burdens and risks implicit in her imperial hubris, but, as the neoconservatives never feel compelled to admit that they were wrong, one suspects that Haley\u2019s assertion that she does not do confusion is only the beginning if she succeeds in her apparent quest for the highest office in the land. Worse than John Bolton? Absolutely.<\/p>\n Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest. [This article originally appeared at\u00a0The Unz Review<\/a>, reprinted with permission.]<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n