WASHINGTON (AP) – Mike Pompeo is not disappearing silently. In his final days as secretary of state, he is issuing orders that have caused international consternation and tweeting a storm in his official and personal accounts to cement his legacy as one of the main promoters of President Donald Trump’s “America First” doctrine.
With a potential eye for a 2024 presidential race, Pompeo doubled his support for Trump, even when other Cabinet members resigned or remained out of sight after the Capitol violence. While the House debated Trump’s role in encouraging the riot, Pompeo sent a tweet promoting Trump to the Nobel Peace Prize.
Last week, Pompeo celebrated controversial policies that are likely to be overthrown by his successor, intensified criticism of what he believes to be unfair media coverage and complained about the alleged censorship of conservatives on social media.
And in a sign of his post-Trump ambitions, he asked followers of his State Department official Twitter account to start following his personal account.
While it is not uncommon for Cabinet members who are leaving office to publicize their successes, Pompeo has taken a step further, destroying his predecessors in the national security community, some of whom will play prominent roles in the administration of President-elect Joe Biden.
“Do you remember this ‘Middle East expert’? He said it couldn’t happen. We did it, ”said Pompeo in a provocative tweet with a video clip of John Kerry saying that Arab countries would not recognize Israel without a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. Kerry, a former secretary of state, will serve as climate envoy in the Biden administration.
Already the most political of the recent state secretaries, Pompeo was irritated by even the mildest criticisms and accused his critics of being misguided, unintelligent or incompetent. He ignored the advice of his own advisers when moving on with his favorite projects, some of which seem destined to complicate Biden’s presidency.
Since last Saturday, he has:
– The longstanding restrictions on US contacts with Taiwan have been lifted, a move whose main result is to irritate China.
– He declared that the Houthi of Yemen are rebelling against a terrorist organization, a measure that the United Nations and aid agencies say can worsen what is already a humanitarian catastrophe.
—Re has designated Cuba as a “sponsor of terrorism”, an action that will prevent or at least delay any attempt by Biden to improve ties with Havana.
– He accused Iran of deep and lasting ties with Al Qaeda, a statement that many in the intelligence community consider exaggerated, given the history of animosity between the two.
The actions are in line with the harsh “America First” policy that he has long defended.
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 the Trump administration withdrew during his time as the United States’ top diplomat. .
In Iran, Pompeo has been particularly harsh, again imposing all sanctions that were eased by the Obama administration after the 2015 nuclear deal and adding more penalties. He also defended the death of a leading Iranian general in Iraq early last year and has been at the forefront of an effort to encourage Sunni Arab states to unite against predominantly Shiite Iran.
“The foreign policy blob is constantly looking for a moderate within the Iranian regime who will ‘normalize relations’, Pompeo said this week. “The reality is that you have a better chance of finding a unicorn.”
Pompeo has made it a sport to mistreat China, Cuba and international organizations, as well as Obama administration officials who he believes were naive in negotiating with them.
“As the biggest contributor to the UN, I put US taxpayers and America’s interests first,” tweeted Pompeo on Monday. It was accompanied by a photo of former President Barack Obama, Kerry, Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, and Obama’s ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, at the United Nations. Along with Kerry, Rice and Power were also appointed to prominent positions in the Biden administration.
Still, despite all efforts to celebrate the Trump administration’s foreign policy, Pompeo and the State Department had minimal roles in some of the larger areas, with the White House taking over. This was most notable in what Trump supporters see as one of their main achievements, improving Israel’s ties with its Arab neighbors.
Led by Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, the government has tirelessly promoted Arab-Israeli peace efforts, culminating in agreements to normalize relations between the Jewish state and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. Pompeo and the State Department were absent from this diplomacy, with the exception of Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, who reports mainly to the White House.
Pompeo’s State Department was effectively excluded from Kushner’s much-talked-about Israeli-Palestinian “vision” of peace – and the secretary of state was not present for the launch of the economic part of the plan in Bahrain in 2019. Pompeo and other cabinet members They were present for the unveiling of the proposal’s political piece last January, but their role in creating the plan, which was immediately rejected by the Palestinians, is unclear.
On Thursday, Pompeo praised Trump’s decision in March 2019 to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which he captured from Syria in 1967. He tweeted a video of him and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking at the residence of Netanyahu in Jerusalem that night with the caption: “I will never forget this moment.” Still, he and his delegation were out of the loop about the timing of the Golan Hills decision, which Trump took after consulting Kushner just minutes before Pompeo met Netanyahu.
Likewise, the State Department took a back seat in Kushner’s negotiations to make Morocco normalize ties with Israel, which involved recognition by the US of Moroccan sovereignty over the former Spanish territory of Western Sahara.
Pompeo overturned a decades-old American legal opinion on the legality of Jewish settlements on land claimed by Palestinians. On his last visit to Israel in November, Pompeo became the first secretary of state to visit a settlement and on Thursday proudly promoted a West Bank wine named after him.
“L’Chaim wine for Pompeo!” Pompeo said on Twitter.