Some past and present diplomats are upset that the State Department has removed the flags of all the countries and territories in which the United States has diplomatic relations, replacing them with American flags. “It’s so much worse than ‘America First,’” former peace processer Aaron David Miller quipped.
Miller’s objection is ignorant on multiple levels. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Deputy Chris Landau are correct that the primary job of the State Department is to represent the U.S. Other flags can be decorations, but the fact that Miller and other diplomats see them as more highlights a problem the same diplomats are at pains to deny. Secretary of State George Shultz famously would ask ambassador-nominees to find their country on a globe, and woe to anyone who did not point to the U.S.
