Pence trip to Mideast focuses on allies
JERUSALEM — As Democrats and Republicans warred over which party to blame for the two-day-old government shutdown, Vice President Mike Pence made his own foray into unfriendly territory.
On their way to Israel, the vice president and his wife, Karen, visited U.S. troops near Jordan’s Syrian border, where Pence slammed a minority in the Senate for playing “politics with military pay” — and that was the easy part of this quick-stop three-nation Middle Eastern tour.
The unscheduled military base touchdown came after Pence visited Cairo and Amman, where Egyptian President Abdel-fattah el-sissi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II already had made known their opposition to President Donald Trump’s plan, announced in December, to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
On Sunday, Jordan’s king recalled his support for Trump’s focus on brokering a big deal to end the Pales
PENCE
tinian-israeli conflict, and his later disappointment that Trump’s Jerusalem announcement was not part of a mutual settlement.
Later when a reporter asked the vice president about the meeting, Pence answered, “Look, friends occasionally have disagreements.”
“You see the Jordanian government almost on the defensive,” Ghaith Al Omari of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said of the pinch Trump’s embassy announcement presented for King Abdullah, who serves as the Hashemite custodian of the al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Egypt drafted a U.N. resolution that demanded Trump rescind his Jerusalem decision. The United States used its Security Council veto power to kill the measure.
On Saturday, when reporters shouted questions to Pence and el-sissi to see if they discussed Jerusalem, neither leader responded. Later Pence told a reporter he heard el-sissi out.
The New York Times recently reported that an Egyptian intelligence officer called the country’s leading talk show hosts and suggested they not condemn Trump’s decision on Jerusalem.
“That piece was controversial,” al-omari noted. “The Egyptians denied it.” At this point, he added, there is no Arab official who would publicly support Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
The Egyptian leader did recognize that his country’s status as the first nation Pence visited on this trip was a “reflection” of improved relations between Cairo and Washington — a complete reset from the days when President Barack Obama shunned el-sissi.
In visiting Egypt and Jordan,
Pence can be seen as cementing the administration’s focus on strengthening the Sunni alliance with its interest in defeating Islamic State, checking Tehran’s hegemony and challenging Islamist extremism.
In a sense then, Pence’s trip is a follow-up on Trump’s first overseas trip in May, which began in Saudi Arabia. Trump summed up the relationship as one of shared interests. “We are not here to lecture,” Trump proclaimed, but “to offer partnership based on shared interests.”
Pence’s visit with U.S. troops also served to acknowledge the military’s progress in liberating huge swaths of what was IS territory. It also injected partisan politics into an overseas speech to U.S. troops.
This three-nation trip, originally scheduled for December, was postponed in case the vice president’s support was needed to pass the GOP’S signature tax-cut measure.
Pence’s trip closes in Israel, where he will speak to the Knesset, dine with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and visit the historic Western Wall.
“I know for a fact that this trip is something that the vice president has been looking forward to” since the Trump-pence ticket won the election, said former aide Marc Lotter. Pence especially enjoys his ambassadorial duties, Lotter added, because America’s allies see that Trump will stand by them.
With his Boy Scout sensibilities and stentorian style of speaking, Pence has proved to be not only ballast, but also an effective global ambassador, for the brash, mercurial Trump.
Pence’s different style will not shield him from some of the wrath directed toward Trump’s positions. Arab Party leader Ayman Odeh has called for a boycott of Pence’s speech to the Knesset. Israeli Jews also are not united behind the idea.
Billboards near the King David Hotel, where the Pences will stay, welcome the vice president as “a true friend of Zion.” Still, Al Omari predicted, dissent “will cast a cloud on what otherwise should have been a lovefest.”
Contact Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal. com or 202-662-7391. Follow @ Debrajsaunders on Twitter.