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Pompeo is a failure

Here is Secretary of State Pompeo in an interview with Mary Louise Kelly of NPR that demonstrates unequivocally his unfitness for office:

First he defends withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA or Iran nuclear deal), which has led inexorably to Iran acquiring more of the materials required for nuclear weapons. In self-defense, he simply asserts “we’ll stop them,” with no evidence whatsoever. That’s because there is none.

Then he declares himself happy with the Administration’s Ukraine policy, which he claims the State Department controls, and says he has defended every single State Department official. This despite the fact that he has not defended several officials who testified in Congress and that Rudy Giuliani was conducting Ukraine policy outside State Department channels.

In any event, listen to the end, since Kelly then reports on a subsequent conversation with the Secretary, in which he berates her for asking about Ukraine in ways that are simply unacceptable, even if unsurprising. No one should expect this Administration to show even minimal respect for a media professional. It prefers the hacks at Fox News who do its bidding.

Pompeo, again not surprisingly, also has bigoted views on Muslims and counts right-wing extremists among his greatest admirers. That may seem obscure or irrelevant to many Americans, but stop a moment to consider how the 1.8 billion Muslims on earth look at a country that has a bigot as Secretary of State.

The simple fact is that Pompeo is not qualified to lead American foreign policy, which is failing in the most important challenges he faces. In addition to precipitating Iran’s return to pursuit of nuclear weapons, the Administration is presiding over a stunning array of failures:

1. North Korea continues to produce nuclear weapons and improve its missiles.
2. Venezuela’s President Maduro continues in power.
3. Russia continues to occupy a good slice of Ukraine.
4. Iran and Russia are winning back control of Syria for President Assad.
5. Iraqis are pushing back against the presence of US troops.
6. The American “deal of the century” for Israel and Palestine stands no chance of acceptance by the Palestinians.
7. The trade war with China has been suspended with few gains, in order to provide American farmers some relief before the 2020 election.

I could go on, but the overall picture is clear: “America First” foreign policy has failed, often because it has amounted to “America Alone.” Our major European allies (that’s now France and Germany, with the UK out of the European Union) are no longer cooperating voluntarily with the US. They can do better withholding cooperation and only giving in when they can get something in return from a transactional president. A few weaker reeds like Poland, Hungary, Italy as well as post-Brexit Britain may be more on board with this Administration, but mainly because of their own nationalist domestic politics. The sense of shared mission to make the world safer for democracy has evaporated. Its now every country for itself.

Lots of us, including me, thought Pompeo might be a relative success compared to his disastrous predecessor, Rex Tillerson. But succeeding as Secretary of State in an administration as wrong-headed about the world as this one just isn’t possible. It will take a decade or more to rebuild US influence in the world once Trump is out of office. Two decades or more if he wins a second term.