President emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Richard Haass, who served as Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. State Department during the George W. Bush administration, on Thursday wrote on social media about the wars in Ukraine and Iran: “Vladimir Putin & Donald Trump launched wars of choice they expected would end quickly & decisively. Both must decide how to conclude them now that their assumptions have proven wrong.”
Conservative political commentator John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary magazine and former speechwriter for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, replied to Haass: “That’s a disgraceful thing to say in every way. Shame on you.”
That’s a disgraceful thing to say in every way. Shame on you. https://t.co/s2mso6rNgJ
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) May 7, 2026
Many on X, including former White House correspondent for CNN John Harwood, asked Podhoretz, “What’s disgraceful about Richard’s comment?”
One commenter replied, “I’m sorry, but what’s wrong with Haass’s statement? Did Trump launch a war of choice? Did he expect it to end quickly? Is he scrambling to find a way out? I think we can answer affirmatively to all three.”
Sorry, but neither war was one of necessity & both have turned out badly. Rather than making ad hominem comments you might try to refute me on the merits (good luck with that), learn from what has gone wrong, or suggest as i have in Home & Away how to limit costs going forward. https://t.co/q1OewJSVhk
— Richard N. Haass (@RichardHaass) May 7, 2026
Haass, who was a close advisor to Secretary of State Colin Powell during the lead-up to the Iraq War, replied to Podhoretz: “Sorry, but neither war was one of necessity & both have turned out badly. Rather than making ad hominem comments you might try to refute me on the merits (good luck with that), learn from what has gone wrong, or suggest as I have in Home & Away how to limit costs going forward.”
[NOTE: Haass left the Republican Party in 2020. In December 2025, Axios reported that Haass is a member of Dialog, a secret society founded by billionaire Trump supporter Peter Thiel and Auren Hoffman, which “bills itself as offering global elites the chance to talk candidly across ideological lines.”]