WASHINGTON (AP) – Mike Pompeo does not fade silently. In his last days as Secretary of State, he issued orders that caused international consternation and tweeted a storm on his official and personal accounts to capture his legacy as chief promoter of President Donald Trump’s “America First” doctrine.
With a potential eye for a presidential election in 2024, Pompeo has doubled his support for Trump, even if other cabinet members resigned or remained out of sight in the aftermath of the Capitol violence. While the House discussed Trump’s role in encouraging the riots, Pompeo sent a tweet to promote Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Pompeo has been pursuing controversial policies over the past week that are likely to be overturned by his successor, sharpening criticism of what he says is unfair news coverage, and he has complained about alleged censorship of conservatives on social media.
And in a sign of his ambitions after Trump, he urged followers of his State Department official Twitter account to follow his personal account.
While it is not uncommon for retiring cabinet members to announce their successes, Pompeo has taken it a step further by dropping its predecessors into the national security community, some of whom will play prominent roles in President-elect Joe Biden’s government.
‘Do you remember this’ expert in the Middle East? “He said it could not happen. We did it, ‘Pompeo said in a teasing tweet with a video by John Kerry that Arab countries would not recognize Israel without a peace agreement between Israel and Palestine. Kerry, a former Secretary of State, will serve as climate envoy to Biden’s government.
Pompeo, who has been the most political of recent secretaries of state, has provoked even the mildest criticism, accusing his critics of being deceptive, unintelligent or incompetent. He ignored the advice of his own advisers by continuing with pet projects, some of which were apparently designed to complicate Biden’s presidency.
Since last Saturday he has:
—While prolonged restrictions on US contact with Taiwan, the main consequence is that China is angered.
Mentioned Yemen’s Houthi rebels is a terrorist organization, a move that could aggravate what is already a humanitarian disaster, according to the United Nations and relief agencies.
—Cuba is once again being hailed as a “state sponsor of terrorism,” an action that would hinder or at least slow down any bid by Biden to improve ties with Havana.
– Accuses Iran of deep and long-standing ties with al-Qaeda, a statement that finds many in the intelligence community overwhelmed by a history of hostility between the two.
The action is in line with a strict “America First” policy that he has long supported with devotion.
He attacked China, Iran, various UN organizations, multilateral institutions such as the International Criminal Court, and bilateral treaties such as arms control agreements with Russia, two of which withdrew from the Trump administration during his time as America’s top diplomat.
Across Iran, Pompeo has been particularly strict, reinstating all sanctions eased by the Obama administration following the 2015 nuclear deal and adding more fines. He also pleaded guilty to the assassination of an Iranian top general in Iraq at the beginning of last year and was at the forefront of an effort to incite the Sunni Arab states to unite against the predominantly Shiite Iran.
“Foreign policy is constantly looking for a moderate in the Iranian regime who will ‘normalize relations,'” Pompeo said this week. “The reality is, you’re more likely to find a unicorn.”
Pompeo has made a sport out of the waste of China, Cuba and international organizations, as well as officials of the Obama administration who he believes were hopelessly naive to negotiate with them.
“As the UN’s biggest contributor, I put American taxpayers and America’s interests first,” Pompeo tweeted yesterday. It was accompanied by a photo of former President Barack Obama, Kerry, Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice and Obama’s UN ambassador, Samantha Power at the United Nations. Along with Kerry, Rice and Power were also nominated to prominent positions in Biden’s administration.
However, Pompeo and the State Department have made every effort to celebrate the Trump administration’s foreign policy, and the White House has taken the lead. It was most striking in Trump supporters as one of his best achievements, which improved Israel’s ties with its Arab neighbors.
Led by Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, the administration has relentlessly promoted Israel’s Arab peace efforts, which have culminated in agreements to normalize relations between the Jewish state and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. Pompeo and the State Department were largely absent from diplomacy, with the exception of Israel’s ambassador, David Friedman, who reports mainly to the White House.
Pompeo’s State Department was effectively outside Kushner’s much-discussed Israeli-Palestinian peace vision – and the Secretary of State was not present for the implementation of the economic part of the plan in Bahrain in 2019. Pompeo and other cabinet members were present for the unveiling of the political piece of the proposal in January, but his role in creating the plan, which was immediately rejected by the Palestinians, is obscure.
On Thursday, Pompeo praised Trump’s decision of March 2019 to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which he captured from Syria in 1967. “I will never forget this moment.” Yet he and his delegation were outside the course of the timing of the Golan Heights decision, which Trump took after consulting with Kushner minutes before Pompeo would meet with Netanyahu.
Similarly, the State Department took a back seat in Kushner’s negotiations to normalize Morocco with Israel, which involved U.S. recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the former Spanish territory of Western Sahara.
Pompeo invalidated a decade-old U.S. legal opinion on the legality of Jewish settlements on Palestinian land. With his last visit to Israel in November, Pompeo became the prime minister of foreign affairs who visited a settlement and proudly named a West Bank wine after him on Thursday.
“L’Chaim to Pompeo Wine!” Pompeo said on Twitter.