Rex Tillerson is big oil personified. The damage he can do is immense | Bill McKibben

Now a fossil fuel executive will run America's foreign policy, right out in the open. Donald Trump gets credit for a kind of barbaric transparency

In one of the futile demonstrations that marked the run-up to the Iraq war, I saw a woman with a sign that read "How Did Our Oil End Up Under Their Sand?" In nine words she managed to sum up a great deal of American foreign policy, back at least as far as the 1953 coup that overthrew Mossadegh in Iran and helped toss the Middle East into its still-boiling cauldron.

If the Senate approves Rex Tillerson after his testimony on Wednesday, they'll be continuing in that inglorious tradition - in fact, they'll be taking it to a new height, and cutting out the diplomats who have traditionally played the middleman role.