As Secretary of State, it’s John Kerry’s job to be involved in negotiations with foreign powers. And indeed, he was front and center for the talks in Syria. But the problem is, he did such a bad job, that he was completely cut out of the last meeting.
Officials from Russia, Turkey and Iran all sat together in Moscow to discuss the crisis. Kerry was not invited. Not only was Kerry not invited to the sit-down, no representatives from either the United States or the United Nations were present.
There is ample speculation that this proves Russia is officially calling the shots on the Syrian crisis, along with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It’s considered yet another indictment of just how badly Kerry has performed as a diplomat.
Insanely, the State Department is trying to spin this as a good thing, calling it a “positive development.” “[If the talks] lead to a sense of calm enough in Syria that political talks can resume, then that would be great and that’s what we’d like to see,” State Department Spokesman John Kirby told the New York Times. He added, “We have seen repeated promises to a appropriately influence the Assad regime in the right way on the cessations of hostilities and seen those fail.”
Earlier this month, Kerry’s failure virtually gave the city of Aleppo over to al-Assad, resulting in the butchering of countless innocent civilians. This was after a year of failed talks, resulting in no progress whatsoever and giving Russia and Syria free rein to continue doing as they pleased.
Hopefully, a new Secretary of State will do a better job than Kerry did of handling the disaster in Syria.