Pompeo Can’t Afford His Own Version of the Iraq War

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hosts a town hall meeting for Department of State employees, at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on May 16, 2018. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]

Writing at The National Interest, Curt Mills hints that because of his future plans for higher office, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is driven to make a good showing of his time at Foggy Bottom. Mills writes:

The scuttled Trump administration ambassador to South Korea, Victor Cha, told a small crowd in Washington earlier this year that Pompeo had been given the North Korea “portfolio,” while new National Security Advisor John Bolton has been given the same for the Middle East and Russia.

Compared to Bolton, Pompeo has been perceived to be a relative restrainer. Pompeo is a likely future candidate. And as Thomas Wright put it in a piece in Politico earlier this month:

Pompeo has a longer time horizon than Bolton. He needs his term as secretary of state to be a success and recognized as such. He can’t afford his own version of the Iraq war, whether it is against Iran or North Korea.