In Europe, Mr. Pompeo is credited with serving to to strengthen NATO as a bulwark in opposition to Russia, together with via elevated navy spending
In Europe, Mr. Pompeo is credited with serving to to strengthen NATO as a bulwark in opposition to Russia, together with via elevated navy spending. Alexander R. Vershbow, a former NATO deputy secretary-general who was additionally a former United States ambassador to Russia and South Korea and an assistant protection secretary, stated Mr. Pompeo had helped defend NATO from Mr. Trump’s “contempt for the allies and bullying ways.”
Mr. Pompeo additionally deployed shuttle diplomacy to heat relations between Israel and states within the Center East and North Africa as a part of the Abraham Accords, the administration’s signature international coverage achievement. However these peace pacts had been largely brokered by Jared Kushner, the president’s senior adviser and son-in-law.
Mr. Pompeo has steadfastly supported Israel by defying internationally acknowledged norms, similar to by transferring the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and declaring Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and the legitimacy of West Financial institution settlements. As an evangelical Christian — a bunch that makes up a key conservative political constituency — Mr. Pompeo has generally framed actions in opposition to Iran in non secular phrases linked to Israel and biblical prophecy.
The Abraham Accords had been a part of a stress marketing campaign to isolate Iran with sanctions and navy threats that started after Mr. Trump withdrew from a landmark 2015 nuclear settlement with Tehran in Could 2018, simply weeks after Mr. Pompeo moved to the State Division after serving because the C.I.A. director.
Over the following two years, he repeatedly vexed efforts by different world powers to maintain the 2015 nuclear deal intact. Mr. Pompeo was visibly energized by jousting with Iranian officers on Twitter: “You recognize you’re on the aspect of angels when this occurs,” he tweeted on Tuesday, months after Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian international minister, referred to as him the “Secretary of Hate.”
Mr. Pompeo was amongst Mr. Trump’s advisers who pushed for navy strikes in opposition to Iran, which the president resisted in June 2019 however allowed in January 2020 to kill a prime Iranian normal who was in Iraq. Nonetheless, Mr. Pompeo reversed himself in November, amongst a bunch of senior officers — together with Vice President Mike Pence; Christopher C. Miller, the performing protection secretary; and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Workers — who countered the president’s request for strike choices in opposition to Iran with a warning that it might simply escalate right into a broader battle within the final weeks of Mr. Trump’s presidency.
Mr. Pompeo has described himself as a disciple of “realism, restraint and respect” — an method advocated by his longtime monetary backer, Charles G. Koch, a conservative billionaire whose community of donors gave extra marketing campaign contributions to Mr. Pompeo than to every other congressional candidate within the nation in 4 Home elections from 2010 to 2016.