Flush to a different plumber

THE EDITOR, Madam:

Those of us who follow geopolitics can recall when Henry Kissinger was U.S. Secretary Of State over 50 years ago, and flew back and forth between Israel and Egypt talking to both protagonists in 1973’s Yom Kippur War. That was when the term “Shuttle Diplomacy” became popular, and Kissinger shared that year’s Nobel Peace Prize with his North Vietnamese counterpart for negotiating the Paris Peace Accords, establishing a ceasefire in the Vietnam War.

Those discussions had begun in 1968, and this bit of history flooded back into my mind recently, when the US delegation hurriedly returned home from peace talks in Pakistan, that were aimed at ending the ongoing war between Iran and America. Although these two countries had no diplomatic relationship for 47 years, those Pakistani peace talks ended after only a mere 21 hours, with the US delegation leader Vice President J.D. Vance stating that Iran disagreed on nuclear enrichment issues, regional influence and the Strait of Hormuz. His team consisted of two Manhattan real estate developers, neither of whom are elected or officially appointed by the US Senate, but hand-picked by President Trump.

At the very same time those delicate and vital negotiations were taking place in Pakistan, President Trump and his Secretary of State Marco Rubio were in Miami attending a United Fighting Championship (UFC) bout. The top diplomat in any United States administration has always been the Secretary Of State, ever since Thomas Jefferson was appointed to that position by President George Washington in 1790.

So it seemed rather strange that President Trump had chosen Mr. Vance, known more for his loudly-expressed bellicose opinions rather than for his quiet diplomacy, to go to Pakistan with his tag-team of real estate developers, rather than Mr. Rubio? Of course, nothing can be said to be “normal” in the way things are done in this current administration; if any rule book had ever existed in the White House, it was trashed on Inauguration Day. President Trump marches to the beat of a different drummer, or maybe they all are simply so full of the smelly stuff that they flush to a different plumber.

BERNIE SMITH

Parksville, BC

Canada