The State of the State Department

On September 6, 1943, Winston Churchill reminded Harvard students that “the price of greatness is responsibility.” If you want to lead the world, you must be responsible. It’s irresponsible to decimate the Department of State with a 30% budget cut. It’s irresponsible to say we’re going to hit North Korea with a preventive war before we have tried diplomacy. It’s irresponsible to let 12 million Syrians [and counting] live lives of misery because we’re not there to negotiate a difficult peace agreement with the Russians and the Iranians because we have no senior diplomats to do so in the Middle East right now.