Eli Lake, Columnist

John Kerry's 'Secret Sauce'

The secretary of state lauds the unprecedented level of U.S. involvement in global affairs. But how has that furthered its values or interests?

September 30, 2016 at 10:00 AM UTC

By Eli Lake

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

Not exactly the world police.
Photographer: Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for Coffee Bluff Pictures

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If you've ever wondered how Secretary of State John Kerry's understands diplomacy, the waiting is over. On Thursday, at the Aspen Institute's Washington Ideas Forum, Steve Clemons of the Atlantic pried it out of America's top diplomat: What exactly is the "John Kerry secret sauce?"

There are interests and values, Kerry told the audience. "You may have tension with the values because of the level of the interest, or the values may be -- I mean, the Holocaust or Rwanda -- which is also relevant to the debate about Syria, by the way, the killings and the torture and the barrel bombs and the gas."