Tom Barrack .. The Aggressive Diplomacy

He offends everyone, his tongue is loose and he does not maintain the composure of a diplomat or the caution of a politician. Rash in his statements and indifferent to what he says, he exceeds his mission and crosses the boundaries of his role. He is Thomas Barrack, the U.S. envoy to Lebanon and the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, now 78 years old, holding a doctorate in law, descending from a Lebanese Maronite family that emigrated to America in the early last century. His closeness to Trump in business projects and international investments qualified him to chair the committee that appointed Trump as president.

Ultimately, Tom Barrack is a real estate broker involved in a corruption suspicion during his work in a Gulf country, and it seems he was saved due to his tangled relations. He is a billionaire for those who do not know. One might ask how he became a billionaire when his father started as a grocery seller. One might answer that America is a land of opportunities and wonders, a puzzling answer in a country that lacks a national identity as much as it has an interest-based identity. In America, what unites people is their desire for wealth, not culture, mood, color, or religion. This important point is raised before discussing Barrack’s insults and accusations he throws around indiscriminately.

Barrack does not hide his contempt for the people of this region in all its aspects: regimes, peoples, and culture. He did not hesitate to say that the entities of this region are pre-state entities, and that the state is a civil organization we have failed to achieve due to our feelings, emotions, and limited intellect. Therefore, the philosopher Barrack suggests that economic peace, which provides bread, is the key to calming or subjugating the region. In other words, the man who seems like an actor playing roles of deceit and trickery in Hollywood believes this region is crowded with sects and tribes that cannot unite under any banner except the banner of economic interest. When he says this, he places the United States as the ultimate human model in historical development. The U.S.

did not develop a unifying national identity as much as it developed a social contract based on economic benefits within a strong military system that works to maintain a high level of luxury.

Therefore, Barrack, through a colonial and condescending vision, sees ethnic, sectarian, and racial diversity in our countries as factors of disintegration and decay rather than strength and creativity. He deliberately ignores the role of colonialism in all its forms and manifestations and its arms in impoverishing countries, preventing their development, and preparing conditions for internal explosions.

In his insulting statements, Barrack overlooks or ignores the West’s role in dividing countries and peoples, and the ongoing role of his country in preventing development and progress in the region so that Israel remains the strongest and highest.

The man was so blunt or frank that he said America does not arm any country to fight Israel but to fight its people. Is there anything more frank than this? He also said that Israel can do whatever it wants in the region’s geography in terms of change or distortion. These are statements not made by an ambassador or envoy to defuse conflict but by a man who comes to serve and implement these ideas on the ground, representing old and new colonialism, aiming to subjugate weaker parties and arrange conditions to serve investment and monopolization without maintaining a mask of polite or ambiguous words.

It is noted in this regard that many officials in the current Trump administration use crude and ugly language to express their extremist views, disregarding diplomatic norms or cultural sensitivities. This indicates the religious and doctrinal extremism brewing in their hearts. A good example is the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Michael Huckabee, as well as the Speaker of the House, Michael Johnson. When you listen to such people, you cannot distinguish their statements from those of Israeli officials who may express less extremism.

Finally, Tom Barrack presents a rude image of a populist American administration that breaks all the pots inside and outside, risking the American legacy for extremist visions that may lead America itself to the abyss.