And now, breaking news from our nation's greatest living diplomat slash coatrack.
US Secretary of State John Kerry has accused his Russian opposite number, Sergey Lavrov, of “living in a parallel universe” as the two exchanged heated remarks over the breakdown of the ceasefire in Syria at a meeting of the UN Security Council in New York.
It's not a parallel universe. Russia pulls out the football at the last second. Kerry can't seem to grasp why that keeps happening.
I listened to my colleague from Russia, and I sort of felt a little bit like they’re sort of in a parallel universe here. He said that nobody should have any preconditions to come to the table. Well, we met in Vienna twice. We met here in New York and embraced a United Nations Security Council resolution. We met again in Munich. And in each place, the International Syria Support Group, and here in the Security Council, the Security Council embraced a ceasefire applicable to all parties. That’s not a precondition. That’s an international agreement, four times arrived at.
And four times worthless. Any idiot would have figured this out by now. But John is still grappling with the obvious.
Supposedly we all want the same goal. I’ve heard that again and again. Russia, Iran, the United States, Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, everybody sits there and says we want a united Syria – secular, respecting the rights of all people, in which the people of Syria can choose their leadership. But we are proving woefully inadequate in our ability to be able to get to the table and have that conversation and make it happen.
Qatar, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey want a secular Syria? Kerry truly is living in an alternate universe.