The only way to fail these days is upwards.
I disagree, I think if you compare Rutte to Michel, Von Der Leyen and other insane picks for these kind of top jobs, you can at least recognise he's an overall better operator. Stoltenberg has been good but Rutte might have to play the role of the Trump Whisperer and he can play it better than whichever goody two shoes would be proposed in his place (Marin for example).
That he led the Netherlands to the housing and public services crisis was by design, not incompetence. He's a neo-liberal who favours the deliberate withholding of supply to support big capital. You can oppose his politics while also recognising his abilities.
On the one hand I personally would prefer the NATO Secretary General coming from a nation that has more skin in the game like the Baltics but you do make a good point on Rutte being a smarter bureaucrat type who could navigate a world were Trump comes back
