Where Trump Zigs, Tillerson Zags, Putting Him at Odds With White House<br />Some in the White House say that the discord in the Qatar dispute is part of a broader struggle over who is in charge of Middle East policy — Mr. Tillerson or Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and a senior adviser — and<br />that the secretary of state has a tin ear about the political realities of the Trump administration.<br />But his first opportunity to use that experience — as a behind-the-scenes mediator in the dispute between Qatar<br />and Saudi Arabia — has put Mr. Tillerson in exactly the place a secretary of state does not want to be: in public disagreement with the president who appointed him.<br />When asked to specifically condemn such targeted attacks in Russia, he said, "That is our position globally."<br />And when pressed further, he snapped, "Last time I checked, Russia is part of the globe." To many State Department employees, Mr. Tillerson is something of a phantom, who says little in staff meetings, rarely leaves his seventh-floor office — where he is surrounded by Ms. Peterlin and a small group of protective aides — and does not solicit their views.<br />Mr. Tillerson, for example, recently shut down the office of the special representative for Afghanistan<br />and Pakistan — whose role had been diminished since Richard Holbrooke had the job during President Barack Obama’s first term — and has yet to appoint an assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, at a time when the Taliban’s return and Pakistan’s instability are major concerns.<br />Robert Kagan said that It’s not that he’s a weak secretary of state or a strong one — he’s in a different category,<br />At the State Department, he finds himself negotiating with other power centers — from a White House with conflicting factions and priorities to the Defense Department — and managing a bureaucracy<br />that largely cringes at the president’s approach to the world.
