In a speech to the American University in Cairo, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday said the US would act with diplomacy and partners to “expel every Iranian boot” from Syria.
Pompeo suggested “President Trump has reversed our willful blindness to the danger of the regime and withdrew from the failed nuclear deal, with its false promises,” and warned that “the nations of the Middle East will never enjoy security, achieve economic stability, or advance the dreams of its peoples if Iran’s revolutionary regime persists on its current course.”
He also blamed former president Barack Obama’s “misguided” and “wishful” Middle East policies for the catastrophes that befell many countries in he region, starting in June 2009 with his speech to the students and faculty of Al-Azhar University.
“Remember: It was here, here in this very city, another American stood before you,” Pompeo told an audience of Egyptian officials, foreign diplomats 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.”
“In falsely seeing ourselves as a force for what ails the Middle East, we were timid about asserting ourselves when the times — and our partners — demanded it,” Pompeo said.
“The good news is this: the age of self-inflicted American shame is over, and so are the policies that produced so much needless suffering,” Pompeo said. “Now comes the real ‘new beginning.’ In just 24 months, actually less than two years, the United States under President Trump has reasserted its traditional role as a force for good in this region, because we’ve learned from our mistakes. We have rediscovered our voice. We have rebuilt our relationships. We have rejected false overtures from enemies,” the Secretary of State said.