Foreign ministers come in two forms: those who are important and those who are indifferent.
Some were very important. Austrian Foreign Minister Klemens von Metternich led the Congress of Vienna program for post-Napoleonic Europe, and thus developed an international plan that lasted for a century.
Henry Kissinger’s reign reached even further, as he organized a major American-Chinese alliance, ended the Vietnam War and sowed seeds of Arab-Israeli peace.
In Israel, the Oslo Accords were drafted by Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, and his registration with Yitzhak Rabin for that reason was almost as daunting as the inclusion of its Palestinian side.
Such foreign ministers are different. Most foreign ministers do a lot of flying and negotiating but they never reschedule borders, escalate wars or end them. And when it comes to such dramas, foreign ministers are increasingly supportive of the actors in someone else’s show.
Abba Eban, for example, first tried and failed to clear the Israeli-occupied fleet in May ’67, and then set aside next month’s military disaster.
Similarly, British Foreign Secretary during the Falkland War, Francis Pym, and US Secretary of State during the Pearl Harbor invasion, Cordell Hull, forgot because their bosses, Margaret Thatcher and Franklin Roosevelt, were in charge of both exhibition events.
Now, judging by the noise he makes, one would think that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is another Kissinger or Metternich. He is not, and he will not be.
LAVROV’s first problem is that he works for an autocrat. Such foreign ministers have never coached events.
Hitler’s chief of staff, Joachim von Ribbentrop, became famous 77 years after he was hanged, but because his name means the Soviet-German treaty that abolished World War II. Too much he had no purpose, because Hitler showed no one.
On the contrary, Ribbentrop was chosen directly because he was a yes-man who followed blindly, blew a trumpet and showed the captain. The same is true of the disrespect of foreign ministers and Joseph Stalin, Francisco Franco and Augusto Pinochet, not to mention North Korea.
There have been exceptions to this rule: fascist Italy’s Galeazzo Ciano. Foreign Minister Benito Mussolini was concerned, not only because he was the son-in-law of the dictator, but also because he was independent, intelligent and widely regarded as Il Duce’s successor. It also describes his unhappy ending, and, among other things, the current behavior of Sergey Lavrov.
As Sicily invaded and conquered, Ciano supported the summer effort of ’43 to peacefully remove Mussolini, who also resisted and was forcibly removed. Fearing for his life, Ciano fled with his family to Germany, which at the time rescued Mussolini and restored his rule.
Knowing full well that Ciano saw the futility of war and sought peace, Germany retaliated against Mussolini and pressured him to accuse his son-in-law of sedition. The request was properly heard, a case was heard, and Ciano was killed by a firing squad.
Blocking the image and conclusion of such a peacemaker is now Lavrov’s main issue.
APPROPRIATELY with CIANO, Lavrov does not spend his days asking, “Where is all this going?” and “How can we eliminate this madness?” People who think in such critical ways do not stay 18 years as an autocrat foreign minister. Like Ribbentrop, Lavrov does not waste energy wondering how to counteract the boss, and instead focuses on thinking how to please him.
Seeking pleasure means telling the manager that his intentions are good, his plans are perfect, and what challenges may be involved that are insurmountable. Then, when perfect systems produce a fiasco, the mindless yes-man mind has to offer solutions. This is the hole where Sergey Lavrov is talking about right now.
Much has been said about the many failures of the Russian military in Ukraine – strategy, tactics, organization, training, motivation, tools, retention and failure of intelligence on enemy tactics and resolution. Russia’s failure, however, is not limited to the military. It is also diplomatic.
Failure to warn of a global response – political attacks, economic sanctions, journalist outrage and the emerging NATO expansion in Sweden and Finland – is rife with Sergey Lavrov. And since he is well aware of this, he is trying to do what those who do not always answer – change the subject. And in Russia there is a well-respected formula for changing the subject: talk about Jews.
That is what the kings did when they failed to give their people the opportunity and the honor bestowed on them by the rival powers of the day. That was the case when one of the most notorious antisemitism tools, the pogrom, was created by tsarist officials, and that is how its co-author, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, was created by tsarist spooks.
The tsarist number was then repeated by the Soviet Union, in 1967.
Pressured to describe the defeat of its Middle Eastern clients and the confiscation of its Soviet-built equipment, the Kremlin launched a massive antisemitic attack through its massive printing and distribution network, all of which portrayed Israel as a bloody colonial, imperialist stooge and fascist scourge. . .
The modern Kremlin, fortunately, is far from that heritage. However, Lavrov’s statement on Italian TV that “the most enthusiastic antisemites are usually Jews” and that Hitler was part of Judaism is a reversal of the ideology.
In view of the recent turmoil, Lavrov may think that he has really changed the subject. This is exactly what the tsars of their day thought, and the Communists in their day, soon realized that the truth remained unchanging, and painful.
In fact, the more the government oppressed the Jews, the less likely it was that they would lose control of their affairs. That is why we know that as pogroms did not prevent the collapse of tsarism, and as a blasphemy of Israel did not prevent the collapse of Communism, the Lavrov ant.
