Naomi Lim of the Washington Examiner reports the latest comments from former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
President Joe Biden being beholden to liberal Democrats has undermined the United States at home and abroad, according to former Secretary of State and rumored 2024 Republican White House candidate Mike Pompeo.
Before Biden’s highly anticipated trip to Saudi Arabia next month, Pompeo ripped the incumbent for his empty threats after the president promised during the 2020 campaign to make the kingdom “a pariah” over the 2018 assassination of Saudi Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Pompeo, former President Donald Trump’s first CIA director, repeatedly described Biden’s flip-flopping as “dangerous” because friends and foes have witnessed the commander in chief not living “up to his word,” akin to then-President Barack Obama’s 2013 failure to respond when Syrian President Bashar Assad crossed Obama’s “red line” of using chemical weapons against his own citizens.
“That is dangerous in the specific instance but really [creates] the risk of cascading crisis,” Pompeo told the Washington Examiner.
Pompeo specifically referenced the Russia-Ukraine war and the prospect of conflict elsewhere since “world leaders no longer believe the silly narrative that ‘America is back,'” which has become a Biden catchphrase.
“It’s like a bumper sticker for foreign policy when what you really need is deterrence,” Pompeo said. “That is dangerous, and I’m very worried about what will confront us in the weeks and months ahead.”
Pompeo defended Trump’s Middle East approach and touted the Abraham Accords, the series of landmark agreements normalizing Israeli relations with its Arab neighbors.
But Pompeo dodged when asked how he would better advocate press freedoms, among other human rights, after U.S. intelligence concluded in 2018 that Sudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered Khashoggi’s killing. Trump and Pompeo met with the crown prince in 2019 but did not mention Khashoggi.
