Ok, well de facto Secretary of State Nikki Haley is on the tape and you know what that means these days: war. Or at least the threat that war is on the table.
Haley has become the administration’s most recognizable voice on the international stage. Although her official role is UN Ambo, there’s speculation that she’s destined for bigger and “better” (depending on how you define “better” in this context) things.
Her stance on Syria and North Korea could quite fairly be described as “aggressive” and Friday was no exception. Here are the bullet points from a press conference Haley just held with National Security Adviser Gen. H.R. McMaster:
- NIKKI HALEY: NORTH KOREA, IRAN, SYRIA TO BE KEY FOCUSES AT UN
- NIKKI HALEY: NO PROBLEM KICKING N. KOREA TO PENTAGON’S MATTIS
- HALEY WARNS UN SECURITY COUNCIL MAY RUN OUT OF N. KOREA OPTIONS
If it’s videos you like, here are some of those:
"We have strangled their economic situation at this point," Nikki Haley says on North Korea https://t.co/ZqfK1x3t16 pic.twitter.com/PMBYUzFJkc
— CBS News (@CBSNews) September 15, 2017
Amb. Haley: “I think what was really important with North Korea is that we try and push through as many diplomatic options as we have" pic.twitter.com/uNKySUKOo5
— ABC News (@ABC) September 15, 2017
There’s really only one way to read that: Haley has had it with the Security Council (read: she’s had it with Russia and China) and if need be, she’ll let the Pentagon handle things.
As for McMaster, he noted that “we’ve been kicking the can down the road and we are out of road,” before saying that “there is a military option.”
This comes just four days after Haley said the U.S. is willing to act alone to stop Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
Why is Nikki Haley telling us this and not Rex Tillerson or maybe the President? Well, probably because it’s looking more and more like when it comes to foreign policy, Haley is in charge.
And if that’s the case, this could conceivably escalate if China doesn’t have a “come to Jesus” moment at some point in the near future.
…and I to the weekend we go!
Both Iran and NK have been handled with too much talk. The best response publicly is complete silence, since we might as well be dealing with children. Military options should be a TOP SECRET topic, and diplomatic options should be discussed through private channels. The fact that the UN/global community has allowed so much barbaric behavior is a massive failure of leadership. Current world leadership holds scant hope.