Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
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What is the context of Antony Blinken's exit interview?
From the online spectacle around Leo XIV's election to our favorite on-screen cardinals. This week on Critics at Large, we're talking all things Pope.
The Catholic Church was made for this moment. I think 2,000 years ago, the Catholic Church basically anticipated TikTok, Instagram, X. You don't have those little Swiss guard outfits and think they're not being photographed. Oil painting is not enough.
I'm Vincent Cunningham. Join me and my co-hosts for an episode on what can only be described as Pope Week. New episodes of Critics at Large drop every Thursday. Find us wherever you get your podcasts.
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The announcement earlier this week of a ceasefire deal in Gaza is maybe the most hopeful news from this terrible conflict since the October 7th attack. Now, it has to be said that even with the possibility of a ceasefire, there are many reasons for caution here, not least that far-right elements in Israel may well try to undermine the deal. After the initial and horrific attack on October 7th, the war in Gaza has left tens of thousands dead, and Gaza itself a near ruin. Israeli hostages remain in captivity, We'll see if they're released soon. Hezbollah has been decimated. Iran is weakened and isolated. So maybe, after so much suffering, this is a moment when change is possible.
That at least is the position of Antony Blinken, the outgoing Secretary of State. He's been President Biden's chief partner in attempting to manage the many global crises of the past four years. including the invasion of Ukraine and China's continuing threats toward Taiwan. We spoke about all of that last week as Secretary Blinken was on the verge of turning over the State Department to Marco Rubio and the Trump administration, and just before the announcement of the ceasefire deal. Secretary Blinken, thanks for coming to the New Yorker Radio Hour. And this turns out to be your absolute exit interview. That's right. I think we can acknowledge that in the position that you have, that sometimes you have to stick to talking points or formal language. But with all due respect, I'm hoping that we can peel aside some of that, at least some of that caution, and confront some serious and even contentious questions more directly than before.
I'll do my best to take on my deep-rooted instincts of caution and sticking to talking points. Exactly.
So let's start with the Middle East, which is always a good place to begin. Before October 7th, your colleague, the National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, wrote a 7,000-word essay for Foreign Affairs magazine titled, And he wrote, although the Middle East remains beset with perennial challenges, the region is far quieter than it has been for decades. He even congratulated the administration for having what he called de-escalated the crises in Gaza. Now, this went to print on October 2nd. How did the Biden administration, seemingly before October 7th, get things wrong?
Look, I think when... You look at where we were before October 7th, and I think what Jake was talking about or writing about, rightly so, were the efforts we were making, and I think making real progress on, to bring countries together, not to try to change the nature of the regimes or the systems, but to try to change the relationships among them, to integrate the region. And the fact is, up until October 7th, we were making good progress on that, building on the Abraham Accords that the first Trump administration initiated, bringing disparate countries together, Everyone from, in one case, the UAE, Israel, India, and the United States on common projects. working with the Abraham Accord countries to actually do things together, concrete things that would deliver results for people in each of those countries. And what we were really focused on in that moment was kind of the ultimate culmination of the Abraham Accords, and that was normalization between Saudi Arabia and between Israel. And in fact, David, on October 10th,
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