Tag: Pompeo

Iran: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Time to pity Donald Trump

Looming over the verbal skirmishes  concerning Iran’s recent attack on the Saudi oil facilities and Mike Pompeo’s calling the attack “an act of war” is the fundamental problem that Donald Trump has created: putting himself between a rock and a hard place. There’s no wriggling out of it without either losing face or getting into a hot war with Iran, which would incur the involvement of Russia and the Chinese—too hot for Donald Trump to handle.

At this point, the end result appears to have been a loss of face—not that Donald Trump would ever admit it. The Treasury Department is to clamp down further on Iran’s financial system—somewhat short of Trump’s bellicose rhetoric. This will wreak further havoc on Iran’s economy, but if the Iranian government asks its people to make big sacrifices to oppose the U.S., they will be ready to starve rather than knuckle under.

We saw a similar Trumpian backpedaling from explosive rhetoric back in July of 2018 as Trump, personally aggrieved by standard Iranian bluster,  thundered back at Hassan Rouhani with threats of annihilation.

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Make-Believe on Climate: the Secretary of State Speaks

Startling climate insight – “There’s always changes that take place”

Today (June 9, 2019 as I write), Secretary of State Mike Pompeo brushed off concerns about climate change with a string of banal commonplaces that reflected either his own state of ignorance, or more likely a cynical reliance on the ignorance of the public.  For detail, see https://myfox8.com/2019/06/09/pompeo-downplays-climate-change-suggests-people-move-to-different-places/

Pompeo trotted out the well-worn platitude that “the climate’s been changing a long time. There’s always changes that take place.” This expresses the fallback position of defenders of the fossil-fuel burning status quo, by conceding climate change is indeed taking place, but say it is a consequence of “natural cycles.”  This position bolsters the status quo in two ways, by implying (1) it’s not so bad, we’ve been through this before; and (2) human activity has little or nothing to do with it.

In the recent past, Pompeo has shown his enthusiasm for the commercial advantages of climate change by celebrating reductions in polar sea ice that may open “new passageways and opportunities for trade,” likening an ice-free Arctic Ocean to “21st Century Suez and Panama Canals.” In other words, climate change was a Good Thing. Now—hedging his bets due to military and intelligence communities warnings about disruptions, and a shift in public opinion—he pronounces climate change a security threat to be addressed “in ways that are fundamentally consistent with our values set here in the United States.” Since Pompeo has been the recipient of $375,000 in campaign contributions from Koch Industries in his Congressional career (see profile in Business Insider) , we can be pretty sure the “values” he is talking about are not geared to cutting carbon emissions.

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Swaggering Swamp Creatures?

AMERICA FIRST.  AMERICA FIRST. AMERICA ÜBER ALLES
Mike Pompeo, Sultan of Swagger

Nominee for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that he intends to “put the swagger back into the State Department.” But just who swaggers? Bullies and braggarts, for two, plus others who want you to believe there’s more to them than meets the eye when usually there’s less. Look up “swagger” in any dictionary and you’re hard put to find anything positive about swaggering. Here’s definition #1 from Webster’s 11th: “To conduct oneself in an arrogant and superciliously pompous manner; esp: to walk with an air of overbearing self-confidence.”

That having a tone-deaf person take over the State Department actually looks like an improvement over the do-nothing leadership of Rex Tillerson, shows us the depths to which we’ve sunk in the Trump administration.

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