Meanwhile, in Cairo

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s stridently partisan speech in Cairo today chiding the former Barack Obama administration for its Iran nuclear diplomacy and attempts to engage the people of the Middle East received a withering response from former US diplomats and regional experts, who called it unstatesmanlike and tone-deaf.

  al-Monitor

Maybe the title wasn't well chosen: "A Force for Good: America Reinvigorated in the Middle East."

“Our desire for peace at any cost led us to strike a deal with Iran, our common enemy,” Pompeo said in another swipe at the Obama administration. “The good news is this: The age of self-inflicted American shame is over, and so are the policies that produced so much needless suffering.”

[...]

“You own the issue now, you own the policy,” [former career US diplomat and ambassador to Yemen Gerald] Feierstein continued. “People want to know what you are going to do, not what you think Barack Obama did wrong. And on that score, there was nothing there, Just a lot of empty rhetoric of all things they are going to do and how wonderful the United States is and it never occupied anybody.”

[...]

Feierstein was among several observers who noted that Pompeo also got a big fact wrong in the speech, when he said who would have ever thought that an Israeli prime minister would visit Oman. In fact, two other Israeli prime ministers had visited Oman before Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to Oman last fall.

[...]

“Double down on supporting a host of despotic regimes, blame all regional ills on Iran, turn back on democratic aspirations of people across the region,” said Sina Toosi, a research associate at the National Iranian American Council, in providing his summary of Pompeo's speech on Twitter.

“What's clear is that was not a speech for Egyptians, or those in the Middle East, but for a home audience,” Josie Ensor, the UK Telegraph’s Beirut-based Middle East corresponded, said on Twitter. “His boss would have been happy.”

The foreign minister of Iran — the main target of the speech’s ire — predictably ridiculed its main theme that American interventions in the Middle East are a force for good.

“Whenever/wherever US interferes, chaos, repression & resentment follow,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote on Twitter. “The day Iran mimics US clients … to become a ‘normal’ country is the day hell freezes over.”

[...]

Pompeo’s speech is unlikely to reassure American allies and partners frustrated by constantly shifting Donald Trump administration positions on the region that they are not properly consulted about, said former FBI and Treasury Department official Matthew Levitt.

[...]

“It is not just the decision to withdraw US forces in Syria,” Levitt continued. “Much more than that, it is the way the decision was arrived at and announced. [US Syria envoy Jim] Jeffrey said one thing one day, Trump says the opposite the next day. … People can’t keep up with the pace of the back and forth, ping pong. The lack of clarity, the lack of procedure in the policy making process — the allies see that.”

[...]

“That they let obvious wrong statements creep in is a reflection of how this administration does business and a reflection of the fact that they don’t have professionals writing this stuff.”

[...]

“There was no applause during the speech, and at the end, it seemed to me, the response was pretty tepid,” Feierstein said.

[...]

Pompeo also seemed unaware that the Egyptian audience is not particularly interested in being part of an alliance against Iran. Finally, Pompeo’s speech showed minimal desire to engage with the people of the Middle East versus their autocratic leaders, Feierstein said.

[...]

“This will be in the dustbin of history before tonight,” Feierstein added. “Because it’s absolutely empty.”

[...]

“Seriously. A joke. They really are struggling along with the C team only two years in,” a former US diplomat, speaking not for attribution, told Al-Monitor of Pompeo’s speech. “Honestly, it'll be forgotten in about five minutes."

And that would be the best outcome.



...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:





Jesus wept.



The unbelievable ignorance of this administration is staggering.