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The January 10, 2019 Cairo, Egypt speech by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – which was cleared by the White House – was a course-setting presentation of the US role in the Middle East.

Pompeo’s ideological and operational speech was aimed at bolstering the US’ posture of deterrence and reassuring pro-US Arab regimes. It was diametrically opposed to President
Obama’s vision of the Middle East, which was presented in Cairo, Egypt on June 4, 2009.

In 2009, in Cairo, President Obama introduced his own vision of rejuvenated US relations with Islam and Muslims, highlighting the following guidelines:

“Islam has always been a part of America’s story…. Since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States. They have fought in our wars, served in government, stood for civil rights….

“Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism – it is an important part of promoting peace….

“America and Islam are not exclusive… they overlap and share common principles – principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings…. The interests we share as human beings are far more powerful than the forces that drive us apart…. Throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality….

“More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a cold war in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam….

“Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance….”

In 2019, in Cairo, Secretary of State, Pompeo, introduced his own assessments of Middle East reality and bluntly recommended policy guidelines:

“When America retreats, chaos often follows. When we neglect our friends, resentment builds. When we partner with enemies, they advance….

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-mideast-strategy-11547509876

As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo concludes his swing through the Middle East, the Trump administration’s regional strategy is coming into view. Like President Obama, President Trump wants to reduce American commitments while promoting stability. But their strategies differ. Mr. Obama thought the best hope for a reduced U.S. footprint was conciliating Iran. Mr. Trump, by contrast, seeks to build a coalition of U.S. regional allies—even if those allies fall well short of perfection—that can provide a stable security architecture and offset Iranian strength as the U.S. steps back.

In seeking a reduced Middle East presence and retreating from expansive human-rights goals, both Team Obama and Team Trump have reacted to significant changes in American politics. Public support for U.S. military action and democracy promotion in the Middle East has all but collapsed, for two reasons. First, decades of engagement in the region have brought neither stability nor democracy. Second, as America’s dependence on Middle East energy recedes, many voters see less reason to prioritize the region. Pundits can argue that these reactions are shortsighted, but politicians must take them into account.

The Trump administration hopes that with limited American support, Israel, Turkey and the Sunni Arab countries can together contain Iran. If so, Mr. Trump can claim credit for improved Israeli-Arab ties and a more stable region even as he cuts back on American troop and aid levels. This is a sounder strategy in the abstract than the Obama team’s gamble on Iranian restraint. U.S. relations with the Sunni Arab powers, Israel and Turkey are sometimes difficult, but a policy based on continued cooperation with them is more feasible than subordinating their interests to chase after an improved relationship with the deeply hostile regime in Tehran.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13534/nuclear-disarmament-demands

The notion of a unilateral U.S. cut completely disregards Moscow’s large-scale nuclear modernization that has been going on since Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the effort in April 2000.

During his state-of-the-nation address on March 1, Putin boasted of technological breakthroughs in Russia’s nuclear-weapons capabilities, which have rendered NATO’s U.S.-led missile defense “useless.” In 2014, Putin announced that Russia’s nuclear capabilities would be 100% modernized by 2021. Meanwhile, America’s nuclear upgrades — including a new bomber, submarine and land-based missile — will not go into the field until 2027 at the earliest, and will not be completed before 2042.

Reagan’s successful policies involved not the elimination of all nuclear weapons, but the simultaneous modernization of all legs of America’s nuclear Triad in a manner that enhanced national security and strategic stability.

The disarmament community in the United States — made up of organizations such as Global Zero and the Ploughshares Fund — believes that America’s nuclear modernization program is “stoking a new arms race.”

Downplaying threats from North Korea, Iran, China and Russia, pro-disarmament groups want the U.S. unilaterally to eliminate more than 90% of its strategic nuclear delivery vehicles and drastically reduce strategic nuclear bombers, submarines and silo-based missiles.

The notion of a unilateral U.S. cut completely disregards Moscow’s large-scale nuclear modernization that has been going on since Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the effort in April 2000. It is a build-up that includes thousands of additional theater nuclear systems, as well as deployments that directly violate the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) between the U.S. and Russia.

http://thefederalist.com/2019/01/10/disputes-taiwan-trade-space-will-define-u-s-relationship-china/

Which country is more dangerous to travel to for Americans: Myanmar or Communist China? If you picked Myanmar, a country that has been in civil war since its independence in 1948, you would be wrong.

The U.S. State Department issued a level II travel advisory to China last week, which means Americans should exercise increased caution when travelling in China. That is the same warning level the State Department issued in a travel advisory for Myanmar. Don’t forget that the last time the State Department issued a travel advisory to China was in 1989, right after Chinese government brutally suppressed student protesters in Tiananmen Square.

What prompted the travel advisory this time? China has arrested 13 Canadian citizens recently, on trumped up charges, in retaliation for Canadian authorities’ December arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of China’s telecom giant Huawei. The U.S. Justice Department requested Meng’s arrest on allegations that she had violated sanctions against Iran by committing financial fraud. Now, the American government is working on extraditing Meng to the United States.

Since Meng’s arrest has ignited nationalist fever in China, with the Chinese government no doubt in a revenge mood, U.S. authorities are concerned that Chinese authorities may “prohibit U.S. citizens from leaving China by using ‘exit bans’” and “U.S. citizens may be detained without access to U.S. consular services or information about their alleged crime.” Given the enormous economic ties of the two countries, it’s extraordinary for the United States to warn against its citizens travelling to the second largest economy in the world.

China, of course, dismissed such warning as unjustified. But this represents a new low in the Sino-U.S. relationship. How much worse can the Sino-U.S. relationship get before it gets better? It depends on how the two nations address three top thorny issues: trade disputes, technology competition, and Taiwan.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/mike-pompeo-declares-end-to-american-shame-rebuking-barack-obamas-mid-east-policy/

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo explicitly rejected President Obama’s vision of America’s relationship with Middle Eastern nations during a speech Thursday in Cairo, the very city where, in 2009, Obama famously declared a new beginning to U.S. relations with the Muslim and Arab world.

“Remember: It was here, here in this very city, another American stood before you,” Pompeo told an invited crowd of foreign diplomats, Egyptian officials, and students. “He told you that radical Islamist terrorism does not stem from ideology. He told you 9/11 led my country to abandon its ideals, particularly in the Middle East. He told you that the United States and the Muslim world needed ‘a new beginning.’ The results of these misjudgments have been dire.”

Pompeo went on to deride the Obama administration for a series of perceived blunders, including the failure to enforce the so-called “red line” against the use of chemical weapons by Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, and the negotiation of the Iran nuclear deal, which he described as “wishful thinking [that] led us to look the other way” as Hezbollah rearmed in Lebanon.

During the address, Pompeo emphasized the importance of asserting American influence through strategic partnerships with nation-state allies in the region, rather than the non-state actors the Obama administration sought to work with in Syria and elsewhere.

“Our eagerness to address only Muslims, not nations, ignored the rich diversity of the Middle East, and frayed old bonds. It undermined the concept of the nation-state, the building block of international stability,” Pompeo said. “And our desire for peace at any cost led us to strike a deal with Iran, our common enemy.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272357/syria-and-our-foreign-policy-muddle-bruce-thornton

Donald Trump’s decision to pull ground troops out of Syria, followed hard by Defense Secretary Mattis’ resignation effective January 1, has sparked the usual complaints about the unpredictable, shoot-from-the-hip president. And as usual, the most important issue underlying the debate over his decision is ignored––our failure to settle on a coherent, long-term foreign policy strategy.

Apart from the by now reflexive NeverTrump harrumphing, more sober commentators have made serious arguments both for staying and for leaving. The most compelling of the former are the risks of ceding more regional influence to Russia and Iran. Both of these rivals are solidifying their presence in the region, and neither is that serious about destroying ISIS, which still boasts thousands of jihadists intent on wreaking havoc on Western infidels. The terrorist gang Hezbollah, for forty years Iran’s creature, likewise will continue to control territory from which it threatens Israel with missiles supplied via the Iranian Quds Force personnel stationed in Syria. And our allies the Kurds, who have been stalwart warriors against ISIS, will be left hanging, vulnerable to the aggression of Islamist Turkey, which likewise does not consider ISIS a threat to eliminate.

The proponents of withdrawal also have arguments that must be taken seriously. Our strategic aims in Syria have been all over the place the past several years––supporting “moderate” rebels fighting to overthrow the Assad regime; enforcing with noisy, carefully calibrated cruise-missile strikes international sanctions against the use of chemical weapons; and ameliorating the growing “refugee” disaster spilling into Europe. Finishing off ISIS does not seem feasible with the current strategy and low level of troops. And our air power in the region, assuming it remains, along with ground forces in Iraq, can be quickly mobilized to answer any threat to our interests and security on the part of Russia or Iran.

https://amgreatness.com/2018/12/29/good-riddance-

The media and the political establishment’s excoriation of President Donald Trump for his decision to withdraw U.S. forces from the battlefield of eastern Syria has been blistering, as usual. Our exit from the Syrian Civil War is, in fact, well-timed and sensible. President Trump deserves praise for bucking the conventional Beltway wisdom to save the American people and, more importantly, American servicemen from this bloody quagmire.

It pays to recall how we became involved in Syria in the first place. In 2011, in the midst of the chaotic but hopeful “Arab Spring,” a number of global and regional powers, including the United States, decided that now was the perfect time to destabilize the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Accordingly, the Obama Administration encouraged a popular rebellion, while denying the rebels the means to succeed in their revolt.

The result was a strategic and human nightmare. A civil conflict raged that wrecked the Syrian economy, obliterated cities, killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, and turned millions into desperate refugees. True, Assad is no angel, but the sufferings of the Syrian people since a host of outsiders, including the sage experts in the Obama White House, decided to “rescue” them have far outstripped any indignities that the Assad family could devise.

What was worse was the fact that the Syrian Civil War quickly devolved into senseless and disorganized violence, as the forces “rebelling” against the Assad regime became a multi-headed hydra of terrorists, fundamentalists, and thieves. True, some Syrians fought for democracy and freedom, but the conflict also became saturated with a wide assortment of villains, and with foreign actors—including Russians, Iranians, and Turks—who wished to exploit the opportunity to expand their influence.

Worst of all, Sunni extremists in eastern Syria coalesced into a new movement that became known as the Islamic State. ISIS imposed ironfisted repression, including slavery and torture, on a vast scale, while gruesome executions became the group’s calling card.

http://thefederalist.com/2018/12/27/4-foreign-policy-establishment-myths-leaving-syria-debunked/

Since President Donald Trump’s directive to withdraw U.S. ground forces from Syria, the foreign policy elite keep levying complaints. While the people opposing Trump’s Syria decision may be loud, that doesn’t make them right.

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio called the decision “a mistake,” while Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham used increasingly creative language to get the president’s attention by relentlessly tweeting about how “ecstatic” the Iranians must be. Indeed, with every passing hour, establishment politicians and conventional foreign policy thinkers are deploying increasingly desperate arguments to make their case about why American boots still need to be on the ground in Syria.

Curiously, they never seem to have a realistic end-game in mind. Let’s dispel some of the myths they are propagating.
1. U.S. Credibility Will Be Eroded

The American people are often told that the United States is only as effective around the world as it is credible. Yet credibility is a subjective term, a politically appealing instrument interventionists invoke when they have no better argument to make. As my colleague Benjamin Friedman wrote back in 2014, “A good rule of thumb for foreign policy is that if someone tells you our credibility depends [on] doing something, it’s probably a bad idea.”

This rule applies in the case of Syria. Washington’s fixation on maintaining supposed credibility can easily lead to terrible foreign policy decisions of dubious import. History is full of examples when presidents, lawmakers, and national security hawks continued or escalated U.S. military involvement in an overseas conflict — Vietnam and Iraq being the two prominent case studies over the last 50 years. The result has almost always been bad for U.S. security, blinding us to the far more important discussion of whether intervention is actually worth the risk.
2. Iran and Russia Will Win

Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez stated in a press conference: “To withdraw without success is failure. … If we leave, Russia and Iran dictate our strategic interests.” In other words: If the United States leaves, the mullahs and Vladimir Putin will swallow Syria whole.

What Menendez and many of his colleagues conveniently don’t mention is the context. For one, Syria’s political future has always been vastly more vital for Iran and Russia’s foreign policy interests than it has for the United States. Under no circumstances would Tehran and Moscow be open to Bashar al-Assad’s resignation; Assad may be a bloodthirsty, sinister, and incompetent dictator, but he was a useful proxy to both countries.

To the Iranians, Assad provided a strategic relationship in an otherwise indelibly hostile Arab world — a man who was willing to take cues from Tehran because his security often depended on doing so. For the Russians, Assad resembled a secular authoritarian who allowed the Russian navy to dock at Tartus, the only warm-water port Moscow had. Both Iran and Russia invested heavily in Syria’s civil war over the past seven years precisely because a post-Assad Syria would be a fundamental blow to both.

To the United States, however, Syria’s strategic position never really mattered. Washington does not require a cooperative Syria in order to fulfill its national security goals in the Middle East, including the establishment of a functional balance of power and defense of Americans from terrorist attacks. The bottom line is that the United States is well positioned regardless of whether Assad is in the presidential palace.
3. The Kurds Will Be Abandoned

While it’s understandable that Syrian Kurdish fighters are angry about the coming U.S. troop withdrawal — viewing any decrease as a betrayal after years of coordination in the field — the fact is that U.S.-Kurdish ties were never more than a tactical arrangement. The Syrian Kurds saw Washington’s airpower as a highly valuable asset to save their communities from further ISIS encroachment, and Washington views the Syrian Kurds as useful local forces to squeeze the organization’s territorial “caliphate.”