Pompeo vows to expel Iran’s troops 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’’ – despite Trump’s decision to pull all US 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 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. 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. – The Times