Pompeo, Who Led Trump’s Mission at State Dept., Leaves With a Dubious Legacy

In Europe, Mr. Pompeo is credited with helping to strengthen NATO as a bulwark towards Russia, together with via increased military spending. Alexander R. Vershbow, a former NATO deputy secretary-general who was additionally a former United States ambassador to Russia and South Korea and an assistant protection secretary, stated Mr. Pompeo had helped shield NATO from Mr. Trump’s “contempt for the allies and bullying tactics.”

Mr. Pompeo additionally deployed shuttle diplomacy to heat relations between Israel and states within the Middle East and North Africa as a part of the Abraham Accords, the administration’s signature international coverage achievement. However these peace pacts had been largely brokered by Jared Kushner, the president’s senior adviser and son-in-law.

Mr. Pompeo has steadfastly supported Israel by defying internationally acknowledged norms, equivalent to by transferring the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and declaring Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and the legitimacy of West Bank settlements. As an evangelical Christian — a gaggle that makes up a key conservative political constituency — Mr. Pompeo has generally framed actions towards Iran in religious terms linked to Israel and biblical prophecy.

The Abraham Accords had been a part of a strain marketing campaign to isolate Iran with sanctions and navy threats that started after Mr. Trump withdrew from a landmark 2015 nuclear agreement with Tehran in Could 2018, simply weeks after Mr. Pompeo moved to the State Division after serving because the C.I.A. director.

Over the subsequent two years, he repeatedly vexed efforts by different world powers to keep the 2015 nuclear deal intact. Mr. Pompeo was visibly energized by jousting with Iranian officers on Twitter: “You already know you’re on the aspect of angels when this occurs,” he tweeted on Tuesday, months after Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian international minister, referred to as him the “Secretary of Hate.”

Mr. Pompeo was amongst Mr. Trump’s advisers who pushed for navy strikes towards Iran, which the president resisted in June 2019 however allowed in January 2020 to kill a top Iranian general who was in Iraq. Nonetheless, Mr. Pompeo reversed himself in November, amongst a gaggle of senior officers — together with Vice President Mike Pence; Christopher C. Miller, the appearing protection secretary; and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Employees — who countered the president’s request for strike options against Iran with a warning that it might simply escalate right into a broader battle within the final weeks of Mr. Trump’s presidency.

Mr. Pompeo has described himself as a disciple of “realism, restraint and respect” — an method advocated by his longtime monetary backer, Charles G. Koch, a conservative billionaire whose community of donors gave extra marketing campaign contributions to Mr. Pompeo than to some other congressional candidate within the nation in 4 Home elections from 2010 to 2016.