November 10, 2017
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has ordered his department to scrub its mission statement of any mention of “democracy” and “justice” as US goals.
According to internal State Department emails obtained by The Washington Post, Tillerson has ordered the department to redefine its stated mission. A draft that was circulated within the department read:
“We promote the security, prosperity, and interests of the American people globally. The State Department will strive to lead America’s foreign policy through global advocacy, action and assistance to shape a safer, more prosperous world.”
This contrasts with the department’s mission statement from 2016, which defined its purpose as shaping and sustaining “a peaceful, prosperous, just, and democratic world and fostering conditions for stability and progress for the benefit of the American people and people everywhere.”
The two texts are broadly similar, excerpt for the deletion of the promotion of democracy and justice—which have been goals of the United States since before the George Washington Administration.
Many were appalled by the edits. Eliot Abrams, who served as deputy national security adviser in the George W. Bush Administration, told the Post, “We used to want a just and democratic world, and now, apparently, we don’t.”
He urged that the old wording be restored. Otherwise, “the message being sent will be a great comfort to every dictator in the world.”
In Iran, the Fars news agency quickly picked up the Post story, adding the comment that the change simply stated the obvious since “the US government has never truly acted as a promoter of democracy…. The only significant change now is that the State Department has made it public, announcing the US doesn’t want those things anymore to be used as pretexts for future interventions.”
The text the Post obtained is just a draft. The State Department has not issued a final document yet.
