Pompeo promises to remove all Iranians from Syria
America will ‘‘expel every last Iranian boot from Syria’’, Mike Pompeo said yesterday in a speech asserting President Donald Trump’s right to an aggressive political strategy for the Middle East.
The secretary of state poured scorn on President Barack Obama’s efforts to moderate policy in the Middle East and negotiate with Iran, calling him misguided and a victim of ‘‘wishful thinking’’.
He told an audience in Cairo that under Trump ‘‘the age of selfinflicted American shame is over’’. The US had taken a ‘‘reinvigorated role in the Middle East’’, he said, and ‘‘reasserted its role as a force for good in this region’’ – Trump’s decision to pull troops out of Syria.
Pompeo said: ‘‘President Trump has reversed our wilful blindness to the danger of the [Iranian] regime and withdrew from the failed nuclear deal.’’ The Middle East would never enjoy security or achieve economic stability if Iran’s revolutionary regime persists on its current course, he said.
Trump’s determination to take on Iran, a policy for which he specifically recruited Pompeo, has been questioned since his decision to withdraw from Syria. Critics including James Mattis, his departing defence secretary, believe that troops in Syria, where the Assad regime has been propped up despite all US partly by Iranian-backed militia, are needed to contain Tehran’s influence.
However, Pompeo, said the US would use a combination of airstrikes and diplomacy to ensure the defeat of Islamic State and that Iranian forces withdrew. ‘‘The US will use diplomacy and work with our partners to expel every last Iranian boot,’’ he said.
Obama gave his first big overseas speech as president in Egypt, telling students at Cairo University that he would reset policies towards the Middle East, rejecting interventionism but supporting human rights and freedom.
Pompeo said at the American University of Cairo that Obama’s vision had led to the rise of Isis. ‘‘He told you that the United States and the Muslim world needed a new beginning,’’ he said. ‘‘The results of these misjudgments have been dire.’’
Given the role of the 2011 Tahrir Square protests in Cairo in overthrowing President Hosni Mubarak, a US ally, Pompeo’s words will be taken as a disavowal of support for the Arab Spring.
Pompeo did not give a timeline for the withdrawal from Syria, but implied that Trump relied on the Gulf states to take on Iran, with US support.
In May, Trump said he was pulling out of the Iran nuclear accord and reinstating sanctions. He has rejected further talks with Tehran. The ex-head of MI6 and former chief of defence staff have called on MPs to block the Prime Minister’s Withdrawal Agreement, warning it ‘‘threatens national security’’.
Sir Richard Dearlove and Lord Guthrie wrote to Conservative association chairmen, describing Theresa May’s deal as a ‘‘bad agreement’’ and accusing the EU of demanding a £39 billion (NZ$73b) ‘‘ransom’’.
The letter, seen by The Daily Telegraph, states: ‘‘Your MP will shortly be called upon to support the Prime Minister’s Withdrawal Agreement.
‘‘As a former chief of Secret Intelligence, with my colleague Lord Guthrie, who served as chief of the Defence Staff shortly before I was in charge of MI6, we are taking the unprecedented step of writing to advise and to warn you that this agreement, if not defeated, will threaten the national security of the country. Please ensure that your MP does not vote for this bad agreement.’’
Citing a letter Dearlove and Major General Julian Thompson, a Falklands war veteran, wrote to May on November 29, the pair claim the agreement ‘‘threatens to change our national security policy by binding us into new sets of EU-controlled relationships’’.
They add: ‘‘Buried in the agreement is the offer of a ‘new, deep and special relationship’ with the EU in defence, security and intelligence, which cuts across the three fundamentals of our national security policy: membership of Nato, our close bilateral defence and intelligence relationship with the US and the Five Eyes intelligence alliance.
‘‘The first duty of the state, above trade, is the security of its citizens.
‘‘The agreement abrogates this fundamental contract and would place control of aspects of our national security in foreign hands. Please ensure that your MP votes against this bad agreement and supports a sovereign Brexit on WTO rules, without payment of ransom.’’
Writing for The Telegraph, Dearlove says: ‘‘The key to my argument lies in the agreement’s offer of a ‘new, deep and special relationship’. This sounds a harmless enough form of words. But in reality, it would serve to cut across the three fundamentals of our national security policy.
‘‘The key to my argument lies in the agreement’s offer of a ‘new, deep and special relationship’. This sounds a harmless enough form of words. But in reality, it would serve to cut across the three fundamentals of our national security policy.’’
‘‘Were the UK to participate in EU defence frameworks in the way Mrs May proposes, it would entail onerous conditions.
‘‘These would likely include full adherence to EU defence policy, and the high likelihood of having to become a ‘rule-taker’ on intelligence, space, financial contributions and the European Defence Agency.
‘‘It is surely not acceptable for us to agree to such terms when, during all our time as an EU member, we have managed to avoid such obligations.’’
Pro-Brexit defence chiefs have long claimed that the agreement amounts to the UK continuing to spend taxpayers’ cash to prop up Brussels’ defence and foreign projects – including ‘‘EU army’’.
It comes after secret recordings in March revealed Whitehall officials boasting to EU diplomats that Brexit would be like a Kit Kat with chocolate covering ties to Brussels for years.
In their November 29 letter, Dearlove and Thompson argued that May’s deal was the ‘‘exact opposite of the people’s instruction to take back control’’, saying it surrenders national security by subordinating UK defence forces to military EU control and compromising UK intelligence capabilities.
Arguing it places the vital Five Eyes Alliance ‘‘at risk’’, the letter called the European Commission an ‘‘undemocratic organisation’’ that had ‘‘demonstrated how untrustworthy and hostile towards the UK’’ it is by ‘‘using the Irish border as a weapon’’.
Urging May to leave the EU on WTO terms, it warned the public to ‘‘ignore the hysterical demonisation of this course of action by the current Project Fear’’, insisting ‘‘no risks are greater than the Withdrawal Agreement’s terms of surrender’’.
No 10 insisted there would be ‘‘no subordination’’ and that ‘‘every sector, nation and region would be better off than in a no-deal scenario.’’
It denied the £39 billion was a ransom, saying it was a ‘‘fair settlement of our obligations as a departing member of the EU’’.
Dearlove said the reply showed No 10’s ‘‘worryingly poor understanding of the issues’’, adding: ‘‘No 10’s immediate response to our letter showed we had touched a raw nerve.’’ – Telegraph Group the controversial