He seems to be building himself as the contender for the Republican Presidential nominee in 2024.
The earth-shaking Presidential election, the devastating Covid-19, the defeat of Donald Trump, his failed election petitions and the frightening scenario of a President being escorted out of the White House by the security forces kept the world on tenterhooks, but one man strode around the world as the US Secretary of State, determined to start a second term in January 2021. He is in India one day, Israel next, then Saudi Arabia and wherever American interests have to be protected and promoted. He is desperately trying to change the image of Trump from a maverick, unpredictable and unstable President to a man of vision, who accomplished much in foreign policy on China, North Korea and Russia and resolved the Middle East crisis once and for all. In the process, he seems to be building himself as the contender for the Republican Presidential nominee in 2024, possibly against Trump himself.
Pompeo is a totally unconventional diplomat, who calls a spade, not only a spade, but a shovel. He had no qualms about derecognising the People’s Republic of China by calling it the Communist Party of China and by calling Xi Jinping just the Chairman of the Communist Party. He explained that he was being precise as millions of Chinese citizens should not be held accountable for the misdeeds of the Party and its Chairman.
No other American Secretary of State has pledged support to India in such unequivocal terms as he has done. “The US and India are taking steps to strengthen our cooperation against all manner of threats and not just those posed by the Chinese Communist Party. Last year, we have expanded our cooperation on cyber issues, our Navies have held joint exercises in the Indian Ocean.” Pompeo accused China’s ruling party of not following the rule of law and transparency. “Our leaders and citizens see with increasing clarity that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is no friend to democracy, rule of law, transparency. I am glad to say India and the US are taking all steps to strengthen cooperation against all threats and not just those posed by CCP…The US will stand with the people of India as they confront threats to their sovereignty and to their liberty,” Pompeo told a news briefing in Delhi and proceeded to Sri Lanka, Maldives and Indonesia to warn them also of Chinese perfidy. He minced no words on Pakistan either when he told a joint press conference that India was bracketing China with Pakistan as an adversary.
The most dramatic diplomatic initiative to rescue Trump from his despicable diplomatic record was his shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East. Though the credit has been given to the President’s son-in-law for getting the UAE, Bahrain and Sudan to normalise relations with Israel, the mastermind was Pompeo. The secret visit by Benjamin Netanyahu to Saudi Arabia and his meeting with Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) were under cover of a Pompeo visit, which enabled the Saudis to deny such a meeting. Saudi Arabia is cautious over going public with an Israeli rapprochement for fear of a backlash in the conservative nation. Saudi Arabia cannot move away from the core issue that there will be no deal before the Israelis reach a permanent peace agreement with the Palestinians. By releasing his own picture with MBS, Pompeo gave some credibility that the meeting was not with Netanyahu.
Israel’s Education Minister appeared to confirm that the meeting took place, adding that talks between Mr Netanyahu and MBS were an amazing achievement. President Trump has said he expects Saudi Arabia to normalise relations with Israel, but such a move faces big hurdles. Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said in an interview the G20 summit that the kingdom’s position had not changed. “We have supported normalisation with Israel for a long time, because we are the authors of the 2002 Arab Peace initiative, which envisioned complete normalisation with Israel…But there is one very important thing that has to happen first, which is a permanent and full peace deal between the Palestinians and Israelis that delivers a Palestinian state with dignity within the 1967 borders to the Palestinians.” But since the other Arab states have normalised relations unconditionally, Saudi Arabia can be expected to do the same thing. And that is what Pompeo is working on. In anticipation, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has indicated that there could be a solution without the creation of two states.
Secret diplomacy comes naturally to Israel, given their position as a stealth state for several Arab countries and they do not mind the truth being revealed later. The secret visit to India of Moshe Dayan in 1978 would not have been revealed if the then Prime Minister Morarji Desai had not boasted about it when a British MP kept insisting that India should not ignore Israel anymore.
Pompeo did not forget even little Venezuela in the midst of all this. He said the US “unequivocally condemns” a Venezuelan court’s conviction of six former executives of US refiner Citgo of corruption charges and called for them to be sent home. “Having already spent over three years wrongfully detained in Venezuela on these specious charges, the majority of the time in horrific prison conditions, these six individuals should be immediately returned to the United States,” he said.
Asked about his greatest achievement in his career, Pompeo said: “I haven’t had a chance to reflect on it, I guess if I were to give you my quick response, it was really something to come back from Pyongyang with three Americans and travel home with them from Asia and return them to their families.” Pompeo was referring to the release of three Americans detained in North Korea on charge of anti-state activities. Pompeo accompanied the detainees from North Korea back to the United States, in what is now considered among the top accomplishments of the State Department during the Trump administration. “They were at real risk and we got a chance to bring three Americans home that morning back at the very beginning of my time as Secretary of State,” he said. “It was pretty special to do that.” Pompeo deliberately avoided any reference to the failure of the summits with Kim.
After the Presidential transition began with a nod from Trump, Pompeo has conceded that his second term as the Secretary of State is unlikely. As for his future plans, Pompeo said it is “hard to know” but he will “keep doing this until we are tapped on the shoulder and told it’s no longer time to be the Secretary of State”. He added, “Susan and I will figure it out.”.
In the meantime, he keeps recounting the achievements of the Trump Administration. He has claimed in a tweet that “the Administration has built out real coalitions—the coalition that crushed the caliphate in Syria, the coalition that’s pushed back on the Chinese Communist Party, a coalition that refused to appease Iran’s regime. The list of what we’ve done is great.”
“The U.S. has sanctioned four entities in China and Russia for their support of Iran’s missile program, which remains a significant proliferation concern. We will continue to use all our sanctions tools to prevent Iran from advancing its missile capabilities,” he said in another tweet.
We do not know how many other rabbits Pompeo will pull out of his hat before January 2021. But even if he does not have any concrete results to announce, he would have churned the foreign policy pot to present the Trump administration in a better light. His own Presidential ambition may be thwarted if Trump becomes the Presidential candidate in 2024. But he may be quite content to have a second term as Secretary of State in a new Trump administration. But for the rest of the world, including India, Pompeo as President will be definitely preferable.
T.P. Sreenivasan is a former ambassador of India, who spent ten years in the US in different diplomatic posts.