24 United States The EconomistMay 16th 2020
F
or a manacknowledged to be highly intelligent, Mike Pompeo
has a long history of talking nonsense. As a greenhorn House
member, brought to Congress by the Tea Party wave of 2010, he
made his name by pushing conspiracy theories about Hillary Clin-
ton. He claimed, without evidence, that she was complicit in the
murder of four Americans at an outpost in Benghazi, Libya, to a de-
gree that was “worse, in some ways, than Watergate”. As Donald
Trump’s secretary of state, he has encouraged a comparison, pop-
ular with Trump-loving evangelicals, between the irreligious pres-
ident and the Jewish heroine Esther. His recent insistence that co-
vid-19 probably emerged from a Chinese laboratory—a conclusion
American spies appear not to share—was of this pattern.
The world has taken that into account. While Mr Pompeo has
enraged the Chinese, hardly anyone else outside the Republican
base seems to have taken his allegation all that seriously. The other
half of America discounted it on the basis that Mr Pompeo said it.
Officials in Australia, Germany and elsewhere similarly cast doubt
on it. It is hard to think the words of any previous American chief
diplomat, a role traditionally considered supra-partisan to a de-
gree, have carried less weight.
Yet, in an administration of mediocrities, Mr Pompeo remains
a substantial figure. He is one of its last significant talents. Even
his critics note his smarts—famously displayed in a stellar record
at West Point and Harvard Law School—and policy seriousness.
His articulation of an America First foreign policy that engages
with the world consistently but sceptically is a fair stab at making
Trumpism coherent. Mr Pompeo, contrary to the impression he
sometimes gives, is a serious grown-up, who has at least grudging
respect from many in the foreign-policy establishment. His basic
vision, of a confident America working with allies, is pretty stan-
dard foreign policy, suggests Leon Panetta, a former Democratic
ciadirector and defence secretary.
At the same time, almost uniquely among those who are nei-
ther related to the president nor rich, he has managed to retain Mr
Trump’s confidence. Since the sacking of John Bolton eight
months ago, he has been the administration’s foreign-policy tsar.
Mark Esper and Robert O’Brien, the defence secretary and national
security adviser, are nonentities by comparison.Hencehisrecent prominence, haranguing China and Afghani-
stan’s feuding leaders and this week flying to Israel to discuss an-
nexation and Iran. Along the way he has secured a few small but
worthwhile successes. America’s capitulation to the Taliban
would have been even more hasty had Mr Pompeo not opened a
diplomatic effort with Pakistan to slow it. This is a more nuanced
record than Mr Pompeo’s conspiracy-theorising might suggest.
At the root of this is that he holds, and on occasion pushes, fair-
ly conventional conservative views, yet is more willing to defer to
Mr Trump than were Mr Bolton or any of the president’s other dis-
carded advisers. Like Jim Mattis and John Kelly, the secretary of
state has a bullish military manner that the president loves. But
unlike the generals, Mr Pompeo, who served in the army for only a
few years, is always ready to take orders. His China-baiting, an ob-
vious effort to distract from Mr Trump’s struggles with the pan-
demic, was a case in point. So, too, the many times he has found
the words to defend presidential impulses he clearly abhorred:
such as Mr Trump’s threatened troop withdrawal from Syria.
Two particular reasons seem to explain Mr Pompeo’s flexibility.
One is personal. After a promising early career, he spent 12 years in
Kansas on a series of undistinguished business ventures. He then
came to Washington, dc, hungry to make up for lost time. His at-
tacks on Mrs Clinton were a statement of intent. Yet his subse-
quent climb is mainly due to Mr Trump’s need for fresh faces for an
administration that many Republicans were unwilling to join or,
because of past criticism of the president, unwelcome in. Mr Pom-
peo could not otherwise have soared from a little-known con-
gressman to a front-ranker with realistic presidential ambitions.
No one in the administration owes Mr Trump more than he does.
The other explanation is that Mr Pompeo represents a broader
politicisation of foreign policy, which predates Mr Trump. In 2013
he and Tom Cotton, then a fellow House member but since elected
to the Senate, wrote a column urging Republicans to grant Barack
Obama’s request for congressional support for an attack on Syria.
It is hard to imagine them—two ultra-partisan Republicans—sup-
porting any Democratic initiative now. This seepage of partisan-
ship into one of the few remaining holdouts was perhaps inevita-
ble. Yet it has accelerated under Mr Trump, in part because blaming
the other side is the easiest way for establishment Republicans to
justify his protectionism and other offences against conservative
orthodoxy. It is no coincidence that Mr Pompeo’s signature con-
cern, his extreme hostility to the Iranian regime and the nuclear
deal Mr Obama made with it, is one of the most polarising there is.
This makes it an issue the secretary of state might privately cite, if
he ever felt the need back in Kansas one day, to justify any number
of compromises for Mr Trump.Back to Kansas
The hyper-partisanship of foreign policy Mr Pompeo has come to
represent is a dreadful lookout, unworthy of his talents. It carries a
risk of endless instability, with successive administrations seek-
ing to undo their predecessors’ legacy, just as Mr Trump has sought
to dismantle Mr Obama’s. It also introduces a new rationale for
American diplomacy as far removed from its expansive, globally
minded strengths as it is possible to imagine. This wretched mo-
ment exemplifies that. On current form, Mr Pompeo will not be re-
membered for squeezing Iran. He will be remembered for under-
cutting the world’s reasonable case against China’s handling of the
virus by throwing mud for his boss in the midst of a pandemic.
That is not American leadership. 7Lexington Mike Pompeo’s followership
The secretary of state is confusing global leadership with barking for his master