Jeremy Carl, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the State Department’s assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, seems an odd choice to be a lightning rod for controversy. Still, Democratic senators and their echo chambers in the partisan press seek his scalp, accusing Carl of everything from white supremacy to being antisemitic.
Carl is none of these things. I have known him for 35 years since we were part of the same debating society at Yale, albeit on different sides. Carl distinguished himself both for his intellect and his willingness to ask tough questions or voice controversial propositions, not always because he believed them, but he wished to test conventional wisdom and provoke others to make their best arguments.
Don’t take my word for it; take Secretary of State George Shultz, with whom Carl worked and who made Carl his de facto senior assistant and chief sounding board for more than a decade at the Hoover Institution. It was during this time that Carl penned a seminal study on the decline of the U.S.’s nuclear industry. The study highlighted the unseen repercussions this decline might have on global security and the U.S. military, especially if commercial influence led China to become the nuclear standard-bearer.
Many critics of Carl ask how he could work for international organizations when his writings and rhetoric suggest deep skepticism toward them. Congress should see that as an asset rather than a liability. Here, too, Carl likely draws inspiration from Shultz, who, as secretary, famously would ask ambassador nominees to find their country on a globe and woe to them if they did not point to the United States. The opposite approach — uncritical fealty toward international partners — was what led the U.S. Agency for International Development leaders to remain unaware as the organization channels hundreds of millions of dollars to terrorist fronts.
The attacks on Carl appear reminiscent of the campaign against Seb Gorka during the first Trump administration. Like Carl now, critics accused Gorka of being an intellectual lightweight. I had first met Gorka when he was a professor at the U.S. Defense Department’s George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch, Germany, where he was a standout. I later served as a guest at his FBI lecture series, again where he would receive standing ovations. There was an irony to Gorka’s predecessors saying he had no credentials in counterterrorism when their chief credentials were as journalists. Only when that attack fell by the wayside did partisans argue that Gorka was antisemitic and a racist. This was farcical on its face, and Gorka’s subsequent record as a staunch defender of Israel makes the criticisms seem even more nonsensical.
Carl, too, is a man whose record of action and allies belie any serious consideration that he is antisemitic, anti-Zionist, or racist. Indeed, for British commentator Mehdi Hasan to question Carl’s understanding of the legacy of the Holocaust is akin to Jeffrey Epstein criticizing someone for inadequate commitment to child protection.
Sen. John Curtis (R-UT) and his colleagues should understand that the calumny being directed at Carl is meant to stigmatize legitimate debate. Carl’s book on anti-white racism is respectful and well-researched. To name-call Carl is to sidestep direct engagement with mainstream arguments and ideas. Indeed, there is little difference between Carl and a centrist Republican such as Curtis.
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Just as with U.S. Supreme Court-nominee Robert Bork, the aspersions against Carl reflect more on those buying into them than on Carl himself. Senators’ criticisms against Bork did not age well, nor will those against Carl.
To stand up to the polemics voiced against Carl is no longer about Carl; rather, it is to double down on the idea that moderates can prevail and the State Department is strongest on the world stage when its employees are able to face incisive questions internally rather than have assistant secretaries who refuse to challenge conventional wisdom.
Michael Rubin is a contributor to the Washington Examiner‘s Beltway Confidential. He is the director of analysis at the Middle East Forum and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.