Tillerson faces tough questions on Iran, Russia
Portraying himself as a clear-eyed realist, Rex Tillerson showed keen insight into Russia but faced tough questions from senators, both Republican and Democrat, on whether he would stand up for American values.
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, enduring some nine grueling hours of questions at his nomination hearing Jan. 11, said the Trump administration’s top foreign policy priority would be to defeat the so-called Islamic State (IS). Tillerson, the chairman and 41-year veteran of ExxonMobil, also suggested the Trump administration might be inclined to keep the Iran nuclear deal, while reviewing it to ensure strict compliance and enforcement, and may seek to negotiate a possible follow-on agreement to ensure Iran never obtains a nuclear weapon.
“There are competing priorities in this region … but they must not distract from our utmost mission of defeating [IS],” Tillerson told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in his prepared testimony.
“Because when everything is a priority, nothing is a priority,” Tillerson continued. “Defeating [IS] must be our foremost priority in the Middle East.”
Facing some of the toughest questions from Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., about his views on Russian foreign policy aggression and rights abuses, Tillerson demurred from agreeing to characterize Russian President Vladimir Putin as a war criminal, while saying the United States should have behaved more assertively when Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.
