“Many,” maybe… but not Turkey or Saudi Arabia, two major world players.
Well, maybe if Saudi Arabia respected the US under Trump, they’d be less likely to torture our journalists and cut them into little pieces.
Not having an ambassador signifies to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, etc. that we really don’t care what they do, so it emboldens them to take actions hostile to our interests.
In general, whether ambassadorships or agency heads, acting career staff, no matter how senior, are not in a position to make significant decisions with political implications, and don’t carry nearly the same weight as appointed and Senate-confirmed officials. They’re viewed (and serve) as temporary caretakers.
How can they stonewall someone if they’re a minority in the Senate?
Did Obama have ambassadors in those two countries?
That’s exactly my point.
(My post was sarcasm if it wasn’t apparent.)
(Emphasis added)
Actually, they aren’t temporary, its their permanence that makes them valuable.
But their role is “how to do” rather than “what to do”. Experienced staff to achieve the goals set by transitory officials.
"There are 49 ambassadorial nominees who are waiting for the Senate to hold confirmation votes. While 104 of the total 188 ambassadorial posts have been successfully filled and another 35 are still without a nominee, the issue of the 49 languishing in Senate in limbo is a source of anger at Foggy Bottom.
“It’s really paralyzing,” one senior State Department official said Thursday on the condition of anonymity. “You can’t really do your job until Congress says you can.”
Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in an interview that “the State Department needs its full team in place to conduct our nation’s foreign policy. Without our complete slate of personnel, we wrongly convey that U.S. diplomatic efforts are not a priority.”
Mr. Pompeo’s irritation on the matter burst to the surface last week, when, during a briefing with reporters on an unrelated matter, he suddenly accused Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of engaging in a scheme to “hold back” the confirmations…
Democrats on Capitol Hill blamed the holdup in confirmation votes on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican.
“Mitch McConnell controls the Senate floor and decides when those nominees get confirmed,” Mr. Menendez said Thursday in a statement.
Mr. McConnell has remained mum on the issue, but Capitol Hill insiders say the majority leader has less power over the matter than Mr. Menendez claims. Under Senate rules, the minority party can hold up votes on each nominee simply by having a single senator raise objection to any motion for a confirmation vote.
The likelihood of such objections is high in the current political climate. Although Mr. McConnell could try to force through each individual confirmation vote, he has been treading carefully out of concern that the process could grow even more antagonistic and because individual votes would eat up valuable time on the Senate floor.
Each vote would require 30 hours of debate time under Senate rules — a number that could spiral quickly to an unmanageable limit if individual votes are required for each of the 49 nominees awaiting confirmation."
So apparently 49 ambassadors have been nominated and haven’t gone through more than those he hasn’t nominated.
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Ambassadors are pretty much justhonorary positions. The President had enough on his plate with the whole Tiger Woods comeback fiasco!
