![]() He told you 9/11 led my country to abandon its ideals, particularly in the Middle East. “He told you that radical Islamist terrorism does not stem from an ideology. “It was here, here in this city, another American stood before you,” said Pompeo, who never mentioned Obama by name. In particular, he slammed Obama for trying to engage Iran, with which he struck a nuclear deal, as accepting “false overtures from enemies.” Pompeo, speaking at American University in Cairo - a private, English-language university founded a century ago - cast Obama’s effort as one that led to “needless suffering” and disastrous U.S. The president made the symbolic choice to speak at Cairo University, an Egyptian public university. Many younger Muslims were drawn to his message. He tried to distinguish America’s fight against terrorism from its views on the religion of Islam, while also stressing that was his “first duty as president to protect the American people.” He emphasized that extremism was a common enemy for America and the global Muslim community.Īt the time, the Obama speech was widely hailed as a thoughtful and nuanced document. In Obama’s June 2009 speech in Cairo, the still-new president was trying to repair the damage done to America’s reputation following the Bush-era invasion of Iraq, including its use of torture. “When America retreats, chaos follows,” Pompeo said. His speech only glancingly mentioned human rights, but did blame America’s “hesitation to wield power” for exacerbating the spiraling crisis in Syria. Pompeo’s blunt approach - he repeatedly declared he was speaking the “truth” - is likely to be welcomed in realist foreign policy circles, where many believe that notions of democracy and human rights are less important than promoting American power in a region where many U.S. The Pompeo remarks also revealed how much Iran shapes Trump’s foreign policy. Overall, Pompeo’s speech underscored how much the Trump administration’s foreign policy is pinned on rebuking Obama, who, in turn, had sought to turn the page from the George W. Obama had a “penchant for wishful thinking” and “misread our history,” Pompeo said, blaming the former president for many ills in the Middle East today. president, who almost exactly 10 years ago gave a major address in Cairo seeking “a new beginning” with the Muslim world. troops from Syria and also “use diplomacy and work with our partners to expel every last Iranian boot” from the Arab country.īut Pompeo reserved much of his vitriol for the former U.S. He asserted that while America is a “liberating” force, Iran aspires to be an “occupying” one. He warned that Iran’s Islamist regime poses a threat to the region, and urged other countries there to counter Tehran. “The age of self-inflicted American shame is over, and so are the policies that produced so much needless suffering,” Pompeo proclaimed at the American University in Cairo.
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