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Antony Blinken Dragged US Diplomacy Into the 21st Century. Even He’s Surprised by the Results
Two major wars. A rising China. Hackers everywhere. He’s the US secretary of state, and he says he’s here to help.
In between, he has tried to box in rising Chinese aggression in Asia and slow Iran’s march toward a nuclear weapon, even as the Islamic republic has (repeatedly) plotted to assassinate his predecessor, Mike Pompeo, for his role in killing Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani. The job is personal and all-consuming, and it’s not even one he can escape for a few hours at home: Protesters spent months this spring and summer camped outside his house, with the hope of pressuring him to end the humanitarian crisis that has grown out of Israel’s attacks in the Gaza Strip. In early August—after Blinken returned from a trip through Laos, Vietnam, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, and Mongolia, a journey one Chinese official labeled his “encirclement tour” —I sat down with the secretary in his personal office at State’s Foggy Bottom headquarters, a small, cozy, wood-paneled room just steps (and a few very armored doors) away from the building’s more ornate and lavish diplomatic spaces.
Or read this on Wired
