Pompeo May Be Our Favorite Admin Member After Clip of Him Talking About Obama Spreads from Cairo Speech
One of the first things former President Barack Obama did upon entering office was to embark upon a worldwide “apology tour” that featured him apologizing on behalf of America to the peoples of foreign nations for the alleged misdeeds of the United States.
The low-light of that misguided apology tour was a 2009 speech Obama delivered in Cairo, Egypt, which essentially laid the foundation for his administration’s foreign policies in the Middle East, as well as the costly and deadly blunders that stemmed from those ultimately failed policies.
Current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo just delivered his own Cairo speech, one in which he called out Obama for his failures and explained how things were different now.
Just moments into his speech at the American University in Cairo, Pompeo delivered the “blunt and direct” truth he has become known for, and vowed support for America’s long-standing alliances in the Middle East, even as he acknowledged the region’s significant changes that had occurred in recent years and were still underway. It was then that he spent about five minutes contrasting Obama’s failed policies with the current policies of the Trump administration.
“And at this critical moment, America, your long-time friend, was absent too much. Why? Because our leaders gravely misread our history and your historical moment,” Pompeo said. “These fundamental misunderstandings, set forth in this city in 2009, adversely affected the lives of hundreds of millions of people in Egypt and all across the region.”
Pompeo referenced Obama’s 2009 speech, and said, “Remember: It was here, here in this city, that another American stood before you. He told you that radical Islamist terrorism does not stem from an ideology. He told you that 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, quote, ‘a new beginning,’ end of quote.”
“The results of these misjudgments have been dire,” Pompeo added.
The secretary asserted that America had been too “timid” in facing the problems plaguing the Middle East, and proceeded to recount how Obama’s policies had failed on many fronts in various parts of the troubled region.
“We grossly underestimated the tenacity and viciousness of radical Islamism, a debauched strain of the faith that seeks to upend every other form of worship or governance,” Pompeo said. “ISIS drove to the outskirts of Baghdad as America hesitated. They raped and pillaged and murdered tens of thousands of innocents. They birthed a caliphate across Syria and Iraq and launched terror attacks that killed all across continents.”
He spoke of how Obama had done nothing to support the popular uprising of Iranians in the brutally suppressed “Green Revolution,” and said that the Iranian regime, “Emboldened, the regime spread its cancerous influence to Yemen, to Iraq, to Syria, and still further into Lebanon.”
He further noted how Obama had stood idly by while Iran propped up and armed Hezbollah in Lebanon — “in flagrant violation of international law” — and how Hezbollah’s arsenal threatened the nation of Israel. He pointed out how, save for condemning the horrific actions, Obama did nothing of substance when Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad waged chemical warfare against innocent civilians, and how that administration also did nothing to protect the oppressed religious minorities in the region.
“So today, what did we learn from all of this? We learned that when America retreats, chaos often follows. When we neglect our friends, resentment builds. And when we partner with enemies, they advance,” Pompeo said.
But all is not lost, in his view. Pompeo said, “The good news. 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. Now comes the real new beginning.”
The secretary spent the rest of his speech highlighting the extraordinary progress the Trump administration — in conjunction with America’s Middle Eastern allies — has already achieved in the region in less than two years and laid out the administration’s vision for building upon that immense progress going forward.
The not-so-subtle slams against Obama’s failed foreign policies were great, but in truth, the entire speech by Pompeo was fantastic, one which should be read in its entirety or watched in full. There is a new sheriff in town with new deputies who recognize the need for unabashed American strength to bring about peace and prosperity, and it will be interesting to see how dramatically the region might change should Trump’s policies continue to prove successful.
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