In a terrible symmetry, a suicide bomber attacked the American embassy in Ankara on the same day that John Kerry was sworn in as secretary of state.
Kerry moves to State at a tough time. So we wonder if he has reconsidered any of his earlier characterizations of how America should address terrorism. In 2004, for example, Kerry famously stated that “we have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they’re a nuisance.”
That strikes us as fully in line with President Obama’s approach of the past four years. The problem is, while Americans may no longer make terrorists “the focus of our lives,” they make attacking the US the focus of theirs.
In the last five months alone, the al Qaeda flag was raised over the besieged US embassy in Cairo, the US ambassador in Benghazi and three other Americans were murdered and the Yemen branch of al Qaeda put a bounty of three kilos of gold on the head of the US ambassador in Sana’a.
In Hillary Clinton’s final, combative appearance before the Senate, she rightly observed that a secretary of state has “no greater responsibility” than protecting our diplomats abroad. She also noted that “they cannot work in bunkers and do their jobs.”
She was right. Keeping American diplomats safe cannot be done simply by adding more Marines or turning buildings into fortresses. The way to do it is for the world to see that the United States exacts a swift and unforgiving price for an attack on its embassies or personnel.
US diplomats and their families deserve to know that Kerry regards their would-be killers as more than just a “nuisance.”