We have had a series of stories about the State Department lately, from Obama’s approach to Iran, to ridicule of Spokeswoman Marie Harf.
The latest is about the attack on the US ambassador to South Korea, Obama intimate Mark Lippert. He was attacked by a man with a razor just before giving a speech.
The attack may have been prompted by another Obama foreign policy initiative.
The attack comes amid growing anti-U.S. protests here over comments made last week by State Department official Wendy Sherman.
Sherman, undersecretary of state for political affairs, angered many South Koreans with comments that seemed to tell the country to give up hardline nationalist policies toward North Korea and to seek closer ties with its neighbor.
The South Korean government issued a formal diplomatic protest to the State Department over the remarks, sources said.
“Nationalist feelings can still be exploited, and it’s not hard for a political leader anywhere to earn cheap applause by vilifying a former enemy,” Sherman said Friday in a speech at the Carnegie Endowment, a think tank.
“But such provocations produce paralysis, not progress,” she said. “To move ahead, we have to see beyond what was to envision what might be. And in thinking about the possibilities, we don’t have to look far for a cautionary tale of a country that has allowed itself to be trapped by its own history.”
The comments were interpreted by critics here as criticism of South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s hardline stance against North Korea.
Apparently, North Korea is next on Obama’s list of potential allies.