The U.S. secretary of state is reportedly to deliver
an address that repudiates the Middle East vision of
former President Barack Obama.
By David Jablinowitz, World Israel News
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is setting out
Tuesday for a Middle East tour that is to take him to
eight capitals. The announcement of the trip was
made on Friday by the State Department, which said that
the talks are due to focus on the security situations
relating to Yemen, Syria, and Iran.
The U.S. secretary’s stops will be in Amman, Cairo,
Manama, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Riyadh, Muscat, and Kuwait
City. He is expected to try to reassure these Arab
allies that the U.S. remains committed to them.
While in Cairo, Pompeo is
scheduled to deliver an address on the American
“commitment to peace, prosperity, stability, and
security in the Middle East,” said the State
Department.
In the speech, he
will “repudiate the Middle East vision of former
President Barack Obama,” says Politico. The
U.S.-based political news outlet refers to the
address of Obama, also in Cairo, in 2009, when the
president’s aim was to reach out to the broader
Muslim world beyond just American allies.
Politico quotes sources as saying that “Pompeo will
slam Obama’s engagement with Iran, while asserting that
President Donald Trump has the region’s best interests
at heart.”
Obama’s speech at Cairo University was viewed by
Israel’s government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
as the launching pad towards the sour relationship which
evolved between the president and prime minister during
the eight years of Obama’s two terms in the White House.
The problems started with Obama’s decision to make
his trip to the Middle East early in his presidency
without including Israel on the agenda. Then, in the
address, he skimped over the Jewish people’s right to
their land, stressing the Holocaust as an argument that
the Jews needed a refuge as opposed to citing their
biblical and historical rights.
The emphasis on the broader Muslim world, including
the engagement with Iran which led to the six-nation
nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, was at the core of the
strained Obama-Netanyahu ties.
Trump announced last May that the U.S. was pulling
out of the nuclear accord.
However, there have been concerns in Jerusalem
recently over U.S. policy in Syria after the president
announced an American withdrawal from that country.
Pompeo met Netanyahu last week when both men were in
Brazil. A senior Israeli official later expressed
satisfaction over the results of the discussion.
U.S. national security adviser John Bolton tried to
further reassure the Israeli prime minister about
Washington’s policy regarding Syria when they met Sunday
in Jerusalem.