In 2020, Senate Democrats put together a compendium of complaints from State Department officials. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had weakened Foggy Bottom, they said, leaving high-level posts unfilled and causing diplomats to leave because of what they claimed was Pompeo’s “sense of disrespect and disdain for their work.”

Unfortunately, the secretary’s true failure would not become clear until after he had left office: Mike Pompeo had shown wildly insufficient disdain for those diplomats’ work.

Last night, 60 Minutes exposed the consequences of not showing enough disdain for the blame-America-first activists that inhabit the State Department. Although the show was dedicated to Foggy Bottom-feeders’ crusade against American support for Israel, there was one comment in particular that revealed the full depth of the ideological rot:

“The level of anger throughout the Arab world—and I’ll say beyond the Arab world—is palpable,” said Hala Rharrit, a former State official who resigned and is now headlining fundraisers for CAIR, the organization whose director celebrated the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks. “Protests began erupting in the Arab world, which I was also documenting, with people burning American flags. This is very significant, because we worked so hard after the war on terror to strengthen ties with the Arab world.”

That’s when host Cecelia Vega interjected to ask Rharrit if she stood by her claim that U.S. support for Israel against Hamas “has put a target on America’s back.”

Rharrit: “100 percent.”

It’s true, what Rharrit says. American support for our democratic allies against totalitarian terrorist regimes does make those terrorist regimes dislike us. The question is: Do we, as Rharrit would prefer, outsource American policy to those who loudly proclaim their intention to destroy us?

This does not strike me as a difficult question. Nor does it strike Josh Paul as a difficult question. Yet Paul and I come to different answers.

Unlike Rharrit, Paul did not resign his high-level job at the State Department to fundraise for an organization that defends the holders of American hostages in Gaza. He resigned to work for one. Paul took a job with DAWN, an organization that supports anti-Israel boycotts and opposed the Abraham Accords. Its director is Sarah Leah Whitson, who, while at Human Rights Watch, famously was caught fundraising in Saudi Arabia by complaining about pro-Israel lobbyists in America.

Paul’s dishonesty and ignorance regarding the Middle East have been the subject of previous posts here at COMMENTARY. Paul’s responsibilities at the State Department, meanwhile, involved facilitating weapons transfers. And as Noah Rothman pointed out last year, the Biden administration “provided weapons platforms, munitions, and pricey combat-training systems to its partners in places such as Jordan, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, the Philippines, and Thailand. Some of these countries have been accused of violently suppressing domestic dissent, sanctioning extrajudicial killings, and repressing the rights of their minority populations.” Yet Paul was not moved to resign in protest, because these countries are not called “Israel.”

Which brings us to Marco Rubio. The outgoing senator from Florida has been nominated by President-elect Trump as the next U.S. secretary of state. The 60 Minutes episode was intended as a rude welcome to Rubio—it was a warning that those who have left are far fewer in number than those who remain and who share Paul’s and Rharrit’s contempt for America’s democratic alliances. And it was an implicit threat that more resignations and more attempts to undermine the elected U.S. government await.

That is a fight that Rubio should be prepared for.

Obviously Rubio, should he be confirmed, will have a lot on his plate—the outgoing administration has not exactly left behind a world at peace. But as a Cabinet member and head of a hugely important department, he is also being placed in a managerial position.

The rot at the State Department is deep. Rubio will have to battle with pro-Hamas rebels, but he must also consider the fact that while Pompeo won many of those battles, there was no reform of the system that produced them. Rubio’s job will be to win internal battles and also to do his best to prevent future such battles from taking place.

Those who resign from the State Department to run interference for Hamas should be replaced by the kind of people who wouldn’t resign from the State Department to run interference for Hamas. In fact, not a single vacancy should be left unfilled. In fairness to Pompeo, he had Senate Democrats slowing down nominations. Rubio will not, at least for the first two years, have the same challenge.

Rubio will face a rebellion at the State Department from Day One. He should welcome it. A working State Department would be a worthy legacy.