(former) State Dept religious affairs counselor :"Trump has no idea what he's doing"

[MBS]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/05/24/i-counseled-john-kerry-on-religious-affairs-trump-has-no-idea-what-hes-doing/?

Harvard professor Bryan Hehir* once famously warned that government officials who deal with the role of religion in foreign policy should see their work as akin to brain surgery — necessary, but fatal if not done well. That thesis will be tested as President Trump concludes his journey to Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Occupied Territories, and the Vatican, all on the heels of his worst week as president.. . I was Secretary of State John F. Kerry’s religion adviser as the special representative for religion and global affairs and founding director of the Office of Religion and Global Affairs. I worked in all three spaces Trump will be addressing on this trip: relations with Muslims around the world, Middle East peace and relations with the Vatican. When Kerry met with religious actors or encountered religious dynamics around the world, he had expert resources to draw on to gain a deeper understanding. That is not the case for Trump.

According to Philip Rucker and Ashley Parker’s Washington Post piece last week outlining the various tutorials Jared Kushner prepared for the president ahead of the trip, there seemed to be no presidential tutorial on the religious dynamics of each visit. (Indeed, it appears the first son-in-law reduced every pertinent issue to a one-page paper.) Yet the religious dynamics Trump has and will encounter are among the most complex on the planet. The thought of a one-pager explaining the intricacies of Islam, Judaism and Christianity is so painfully frightening it leaves one speechless. . . .

Then there’s Israel, the last place on earth fit for flashcard diplomacy. Trump’s campaign language has cast the peace process there in terms of a deal, but the complexities of a possible peace agreement cannot be reduced to a New York real estate deal. Due likely to a lack of expert staffing and sufficient grasp of the issues at hand, Trump’s visit essentially neglected the question of a peace agreement altogether, with the president never so much as mentioning a Palestinian state. . . Further complicating matters is the aroma of anti-Semitism wafting from both the campaign and early White House days, combined with the leaking of sensitive intelligence linked to Israeli sources, neither of which inspires confidence among some Israelis. We might be tempted to count this leg of the trip as a success, given the absence of any massive misstep — though Trump did sign the Holocaust museum Yad Vashem’s Book of Remembrance with a bizarre, yearbook-like autograph, as opposed to Obama’s somber, thoughtful note. . .

Second, based on the Vatican’s successful diplomatic work with the Obama administration on many priority issues (including our normalization of relations with Cuba**), my hunch is they would like a career ambassador from the United States — that is, an experienced and capable diplomat with whom they can continue to work toward actionable goals. That the Trump administration has nominated Callista Gingrich shows the administration has either not picked up on that desire or has decided to not honor it. It is widely acknowledged that the pope has vastly strengthened the Vatican diplomatic corps, and that he deeply appreciated the working relationship with former U.S. Vatican ambassador Kenneth Hackett and Kerry. To prioritize scoring domestic political points over strengthening the ties between the Vatican and the United States is, therefore, an extraordinary missed opportunity. . .

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(* Hehir is also a Catholic priest as well as a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School. See https://www.hks.harvard.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/j.-bryan-hehir)
**the Vatican/Pope Francis played a key role in mediating the secret negotiations between Cuba and US prior to announcement of restoration of the US embassy and diplomatic relations