Pompeo plants landmines on his way out of office
When defeated armies are retreating, they always lay mines behind them if they have time. The mines slow pursuit, they may inflict casualties on the victors, and they give the losers something purposeful to do amid panic and despair.
That is what Mike Pompeo has been doing just before time is called on his ideologically-driven term as United States Secretary of State.
Pompeo started last Saturday by declaring the US State Department would end its restrictions on direct inter-governmental dealings with Taiwan, a policy in place since the US transferred its diplomatic recognition from the Republic of China (ROC-Taiwan) to the
People’s Republic of China (PRC).
‘‘No more,’’ said Pompeo. ‘‘I am lifting all these self-imposed restrictions.’’
Sunday: Another land-mine. Pompeo designates Yemen’s Houthi rebels as a foreign terrorist organisation. That means nobody can deal with them. So attempts to broker an end to the long and devastating war between the Houthis and the Saudi Arabianbacked ‘‘internationally recognised’’ (but no more legitimate) government are now outlawed.
It wins more time for Saudi Arabia to go on bombing the place, in the hope of restoring its candidate to power. But it makes it far harder to bring aid to the diseased and starving millions in most of the country (which is controlled by the Houthis who are not terrorists). It will take the Biden administration some time to unpick this mess.
Monday: Pompeo puts Cuba back on the list of ‘‘state sponsors of terrorism’’. It is nothing of the sort but this will please the older generation of Republican-voting Cuban refugees in south Florida, and the Republicans can call Joe Biden a ‘‘commie-lover’’ while he is reversing it.
Besides, it was Barack Obama who took Cuba off that list and all his work must be destroyed.
Tuesday: Pompeo announces Iran is now the main home of al Qaeda, the Islamist terrorist organisation that planned and carried out the 9/11 attacks on the United States, and later created the Islamic State which devastated Iraq and Syria for years.
Iranian foreign minister
Mohammad Javad Zarif called Pompeo’s assertions ‘‘warmongering lies’’ which seems about right. They were certainly lies – nobody who knows the region believes the Shia Muslim theocracy in Iran would have anything to do with the Sunni Muslim extremists of al Qaeda. In fact, al Qaeda routinely murders Shias as heretics.
And, they really are ‘‘warmongering’’ lies, designed to sabotage Biden’s policy of rejoining the 2015 international deal which guarantees Iran will not build nuclear weapons. (Donald Trump abandoned it in 2018, presumably because it was Obama’s signature achievement in foreign policy.)
If the United States does not end its savage sanctions against Iran and recommit to the deal within months, it will finally collapse.
And the risk of an eventual nuclear war in the Middle East will move from remote hypothesis to plausible prospect.
But it lets Republicans accuse Biden of being soft on Iran and soft on terrorism when he tries to fix it.
Come to think of it, ‘‘landmines’’ is the wrong image here because landmines are hidden.
Pompeo is setting slowburning fires in plain sight – this is a ‘‘scorched-earth’’ policy. That is the other, bigger thing that retreating armies often do. Burn it all down. If we can’t have it, nobody can.
And Pompeo still has time to insult North Korea and start a fight with Mexico before he leaves the scene.