What Planet Is Tom Barrack On?

Tom Barrack is the U.S. ambassador to Turkey. His hobbies include saying strange things about the Middle East. His preferred form of exercise is walking those comments back.

One recent example: In August, Barrack said the Israelis “still occupy the Golan against the UN resolutions, against all of the international order, which has said the Golan is Syria’s.” He was swiftly informed that that is not true. Official U.S. policy recognizes Israel’s sovereignty over the area.

That same day, Barrack suggested that an IDF strike on a military base inside Syria might have been Israel’s attempt at “baiting the Turks … that was the serious and worrying part.” In actuality, the strike was due to the fact that the Turks were, in violation of an agreement between Syria and Israel, remilitarizing a base in a neighboring country. An ambassador who thinks the Israelis are trying to bait Turkey into a war is not taking his work seriously.

Now Barrack has gone to Qatar to talk foreign policy with Al Jazeera (you know nothing good comes after those words) and has shared some more… interesting thoughts. As Jewish Insider reports, “Barrack said the ‘answer’ to Yemen’s struggle with the Houthis, Lebanon’s attempt to demilitarize Hezbollah and Iraq’s battle with Iran-funded militias ‘has to be that there becomes no purpose for those militias or those intermediaries, that the state or the nation state or the regime itself takes responsibility. So there’s no function for those militias. That’s not America’s job.’”

Barrack was laying the groundwork for a partial American retreat from its responsibilities in the Middle East. But he did so at a time that once again raises the familiar question: On what planet does Tom Barrack currently reside?

The U.S. is at war with Iran. Perhaps members of the administration would reject that terminology in order to preserve the president’s freedom of action regarding congressional oversight, but it is the reality of the situation. Some of Iran’s militias regularly fire on U.S. positions from outside Iran, killing Americans. Is it Barrack’s position that these militias aren’t America’s problem?

Meanwhile, the Houthis, another Iranian proxy, are in the war against the U.S. and Israel, as well. They have been harassing the Red Sea shipping route, and, recently, they struck the main airport in Riyadh. Barrack says he understands the Saudis are in a “difficult position,” but there are limits to U.S. intervention. Yet if it’s true, as Barrack suggests, that defeating the Houthi threat is a matter for domestic policy reformers in Yemen, the rest of the world is in a pretty “difficult position,” too. Barrack’s boss is worried about gas prices; sending the Saudis a sympathy note isn’t going to change those numbers.

Barrack also seemed to disagree with President Trump over whether the fall of Iran’s government would constitute a positive turn of events.

And despite Trump’s repeated assertions that Iran is a “very evil country,” Barrack waved such ugly language aside: “It’s not an evil regime and that has nothing to do with it,” he said in Doha.

Hopefully, one day we’ll find some common ground between Tom Barrack and U.S. policy. In the meantime, it would greatly benefit America if Barrack would stop thinking out loud and start reading his briefing books.

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