@coldjoint,
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/nikki-haley-russian-sanctions-confusion
Deep divisions over United States foreign policy, usually debated in private, are spilling dramatically into public view as Donald Trump’s top advisers struggle to make sense of his rapidly changing views on Syria and Russia.
Last week, shortly after asking the Pentagon to draw up plans to withdraw from Syria, the president changed his mind, ordering a military strike that left State Department staffers “whipsawed” by the reversal. “I think that people here are pretty much as clueless as everyone else in terms of what do you tell other countries about our approach in Syria now,” one senior staffer told me.
Another State staffer groaned that Trump appeared to be “winging it” in Syria, a “Helter Skelter” approach to a crisis that demands discipline. “You have to have a really thought-out plan and think about all the unexpected consequences and contingencies and that is nowhere to be found,” they told me. “Stuff is being done in a vacuum.”
Confusion turned to chaos again this week when United States ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced plans to impose new sanctions on Russia for its support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, only to be swiftly contradicted by other White House officials.
Trump himself was reportedly outraged when he saw Haley discussing sanctions on television Sunday, believing that she was speaking without authorization.
Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders walked back her remarks from the podium on Monday and other administration officials, eager to ingratiate themselves, joined in throwing Haley under the bus. “She got ahead of the curve,” said Larry Kudlow, the perpetually wrong TV pundit the president recently tapped to serve as his economics adviser. “She’s done a great job. She’s a very effective ambassador, but there might have been some momentary confusion about that.”
Haley’s retort was sharp and unsparing. “With all due respect, I don’t get confused,” she responded in a withering statement. Kudlow quickly backed down. “She was certainly not confused,” Kudlow told The New York Times. “I was wrong to say that—totally wrong.”
Indeed, insiders suggest that Haley was not confused, but rather collateral damage in a relentlessly dysfunctional White House. According to a senior official, the Trump administration had, in fact, intended to announce a new round of sanctions against Moscow. “Russia sanctions were a part of the agreed-upon plan going into the strike and going into the weekend,” the official told Politico. The Republican National Committee had even circulated talking points following the Friday strike against the Assad regime. “We also intend to impose specific additional sanctions against Russia to respond to Moscow’s ongoing support for the Assad regime, which has enabled the regime’s atrocities against the Syrian people,” the memo read.
