More background on the Soleiman assassination

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo woke on Tuesday to a 4 a.m. call alerting him to a large protest outside the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

As demonstrators began hurling molotov cocktails at the heavily fortified compound, Pompeo grappled with the new security threat to his diplomats in phone calls starting at 4:30 a.m. with Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and Matthew Tueller, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, according to U.S. officials.

The secretary also spoke to President Trump multiple times every day last week, culminating in Trump’s decision to approve the killing of Iran’s top military commander, Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, at the urging of Pompeo and Vice President Pence, the officials said.

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Pompeo had lost a similar high-stakes deliberation last summer when Trump declined to retaliate militarily against Iran after it downed a U.S. surveillance drone, an outcome that left Pompeo “morose,” according to one U.S. official.

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The greenlighting of the airstrike near Baghdad airport represents a bureaucratic victory for Pompeo.

  WaPo

Gee, I hope it turns out to be worth it.

For Pompeo, whose political ambitions are a source of constant speculation, the death of U.S. diplomats would be particularly damaging given his unyielding criticisms of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton following the killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and other American personnel in Benghazi in 2012.

Don't expect him to lose any sleep over it.

Pompeo [pushed] for the targeted strike, U.S. officials said, underscoring a fixation on Iran that spans 10 years of government service from Congress to the CIA to the State Department.

“We took a bad guy off the battlefield. We made the right decision,” Pompeo told CNN. “I’m proud of the effort that President Trump undertook.”

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“Taking out Soleimani would not have happened under [former secretary of defense Jim] Mattis,” said a senior administration official who argued that the Mattis Pentagon was risk-averse. “Mattis was opposed to all of this. It’s not a hit on Mattis, it’s just his predisposition. Milley and Esper are different. Now you’ve got a cohesive national security team and you’ve got a secretary of state and defense secretary who’ve known each other their whole adult lives.”

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At the State Department, he is a voracious consumer of diplomatic notes and reporting on Iran, and he places the country far above other geopolitical and economic hot spots in the world.

“If it’s about Iran, he will read it,” said one diplomat, referring to the massive flow of paper that crosses Pompeo’s desk. “If it’s not, good luck.”

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In the days since the strike, Pompeo has become the voice of the administration on the matter, speaking to allies and making the public case for the operation. Trump chose Pompeo to appear on all of the Sunday news shows because he “sticks to the line” and “never gives an inch,” an administration official said.

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Following the strike, Pompeo has held back-to-back phone calls with his counterparts around the globe but has received a chilly reception from European allies, many of whom fear that the attack puts their embassies in Iran and Iraq in jeopardy and has now eliminated the chance to keep a lid on Iran’s nuclear program.

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“No one trusts what Trump will do next, so it’s hard to get behind this,” said the European diplomat.

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“We have woken up to a more dangerous world,” said France’s Europe minister, Amelie de Montchalin.

No shit.

We're not in Kansas any more, Kevin.