US diplomacy: the relentless Mr Kerry

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/09/us-diplomacy-the-relentless-john-kerry

Version 0 of 1.

George P Shultz, when serving as America's top diplomat, was once asked what would turn a forthcoming visit into a success. "Oh, you know, I am secretary of state," Shultz responded. "My trips aren't successful. I just talk to people.'' Just talking to people is something the current incumbent of Foggy Bottom knows a lot about. When he marks the end of his first year in the post on 1 February, John Kerry will have clocked up 140-plus days of foreign visits and enough air miles to circumnavigate the Earth 11 times. Unlike the modest Mr Shultz, he can also boast of significant successes.

The augurs were not good following Mr Kerry's appointment. As a politician and as chair of the Senate foreign relations committee he was still defined by his defeat to George W Bush in the 2004 presidential election. He was not President Barack Obama's first choice for the state department, and it was only when Susan Rice withdrew following the killing of the US ambassador to Libya in Benghazi that Mr Kerry won the job. The Washington press corps met his appointment with a collective snore: he was a 69-year-old has-been with a reputation for verbosity and arrogance; anyway, the job was shrinking as the White House sucked in control over foreign policy and US power waned. In contrast to the exit of his predecessor, Hillary Clinton, Mr Kerry's arrival garnered little coverage and his opening foreign policy speech was largely ignored.

Mr Kerry pressed on regardless. The multilingual son of a foreign service officer, he had at last found a role to covet and he set off at a cracking pace. And he was unafraid to take on the intractable Middle East issues his predecessor had delegated in case they tarnished a future tilt at the presidency. In contrast to Ms Clinton, he was unafraid of failure, telling one reporter: "After you lose the presidency, you don't have much else to lose."

There were, however, humps in the road. He swiftly earned a reputation for gaffes, appearing in his first month to invent a country called "Kyrzakhstan". During a visit to Moscow to discuss Syria he was humiliated by President Vladimir Putin, then embarrassed by Israeli officials who chose the moment to reveal Russia was selling arms to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's government.

Mr Kerry ignored his critics, and gradually the relentless energy began to pay off. In September, following a chemical weapons attack in Damascus, he landed a surprise deal with Russia over the destruction of Mr Assad's chemical weapons, albeit in strange circumstances: asked what Mr Assad could do to halt threatened US air strikes, Mr Kerry remarked offhand that he "turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community". The Russians leapt at his comments and made the deal that remains the lone diplomatic achievement in the Syrian war. His shuttling back and forth to Israel and Palestine, meanwhile – which he has visited 10 times since March, and where his bilaterals with Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas routinely last five hours – reached a breakthrough in July, when Israel agreed to release more than 100 Palestinian prisoners, and has breathed new life into the moribund peace process.

The high point of Mr Kerry's year, however, remains the interim deal with Iran over its nuclear programme. Mr Kerry seized on the possibility of a US-Iranian detente following the election of the moderate president Hassan Rouhani. By demonstrating his willingness to meet the Iranian delegation, he laid to rest fears in Tehran that the Islamic republic was being gamed by Washington.

Of course, critics in Washington will still say he travels too much, that in his obsession with the Middle East he has ignored China. The Syrian peace talks may well be postponed again, and the Iran deal could fall apart. Few are optimistic about the Israel-Palestine process, and Egypt has reverted to military rule. Nevertheless, in the past year Mr Kerry has made a strong case for talking, and Mr Obama will be optimistic of landing more successes from this unexpected quarter.

Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning.