US-China Rift: An Inside Job

Who Is Really Incharge Here?

US has pledged to sell 6.4 billion dollars worth of weapons to Taiwan in a quid-pro-quo to china for muscling Chinese government to agree to sanctions on Iran. While China fumes and makes vieled threats of retaliation there is very little that it can do to prevent this sale from going through. In addition, when the time comes they will also agree to additional sanctions against Iran. This has been going on for sometimes now and this is not a sale that was not anticipated. However there are other policy issues beyond the weapons sale.

Most importantly, this is not one of President Obama's policy but an inside job from the state department. The state department is totally out of Obama's control. Unfortunately Obama does not know the first thing as to what is happenning or what is going to happen when it comes to making or implementing US foreign policy. Obama is being kept occipied with the smaller domestic issues of relatively minor import while the all important and far reaching decisionsa re being made at a different level within and outside the state department. Even Hillary Clinton is out of the loop.

As a backdrop to the foriegn policy running amock, Obama, through his AG should assign a special prosecutor to investigate the hiring/firing policies at the state department. Just like the news business, the movie business, and the jewelery business the hiring and firing at the state department is very much controlled. Who gets hired and gets what assignment is strictly an inside job and only few people know the inner working of hiring process. The hiring process is not transparent. How can you explain the currnte makeup of policy makers, the under secretaries, the foreign operatives, and the rest of the gang at the state department. Who reallyl hires people and what is the process, if any, they follow to provide equal opportunity to all candidates.

Eric holder has been out of the news since he announced his resolve to prosecute those who ordered and facilitated torture at Guantanamo, Abu Gharib and other places. Does he have the appetite to take on more of what State departments is doing behind the President's back? Very unlikely.