The Middle East 丨 Pompeo leaves more than just embarrassment
As an important cabinet member of the Trump administration, US Secretary of State Pompeo seems to have also followed Trump's "improvement" skills.
With the result of the presidential election undecided and the turmoil in the United States unrest, Pompeo embarked on a 10-day trip to Europe and the Middle East on the 14th of this month.
Some media referred to this visit as a "farewell", and some said that it was Pompeo "gathering" for himself to participate in the 2024 presidential election.
But in fact, there are various signs that no matter how Pompeo makes his "little abacus", its ending is destined to fail.
Although at the first stop of the trip in France, the local media had already relentlessly pointed out that Pompeo's arrival was "embarrassing", but in the Middle East, Pompeo faced more than embarrassment.
Pompeo who is "specially treated" by various countries
Turkey’s standing in Pompeo’s seven-nation tour is no exception.
He neither traveled to Ankara, the Turkish capital, nor met with political leaders.
On the 16th local time, Pompeo arrived in Istanbul and met with the leaders of the Orthodox Church on the 17th, and then left Turkey at a later date.
During his stay in Turkey, Pompeo did not meet with President Erdogan, nor with Foreign Minister Cavusoglu.
The United States and Turkey also have different opinions on why the two sides did not meet.
The Associated Press quoted a senior official from the US State Department as saying that Pompeo did not meet with Turkish officials because the trip was short and it was difficult to coordinate arrangements. Although the US requested a meeting, Turkish officials could not rush to Istanbul from the capital Ankara.
Turkish media claimed that the Turkish government reacted coldly to Pompeo's visit and refused to leave Ankara for Istanbul to meet with him.
Qatar also appeared extremely "cautious" towards Pompeo's visit.
On the 21st local time, Pompeo held separate meetings with Qatar’s Emir Tamim and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammed in the capital Doha. However, the details revealed at this meeting are sufficient to explain many issues.
First of all, regarding the location of this meeting, Tamim did not arrange for the "Emir Palace" where foreign dignitaries are routinely received, but chose the "Pearl Palace" on the artificial island of Doha, the capital.
In addition, compared to previous visits, the Qatar official media’s handling of the news is also very brief. The official press draft only contains two short sentences: "This morning (21st), Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani met with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at Pearl Palace." "During the meeting, the two sides discussed bilateral strategic relations between the two friendly countries, and discussed regional hotspot issues and the latest international situation. They exchanged opinions.” What’s more worth mentioning is that the Qa’an announced only one news picture, neither the national flags of the two countries nor the Emir’s face. It looks more like the two sides are “talking freely” in the outdoor garden. .
Compared to being publicly "faced" by the Turkish government, Pompeo's trip to the UAE seemed calm.
On November 20th, Pompeo arrived in Abu Dhabi. After a short one-day trip, the reception in the UAE was quite satisfactory. After Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed met with Pompeo, the UAE’s official news agency, the UAE’s official news agency, Al-Thailand, published an article not long A news release that is not short and uninspiring.
This is precisely an attitude. After all, the UAE has congratulated Biden on his election, so one of the main contents of the talks is to review the U.S.-Arab strategic dialogue in October 2019.
I have to say that in the UAE, the level of maintaining face-to-face "awkward chat" is really not low.
Pompeo was also left out in the cold at the last stop of his "Farewell Journey" to Saudi Arabia.
When the Saudi National News Agency reported on the meeting between Pompeo and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, it simply stated that “in addition to discussing the development of the Middle East situation and the efforts made to this end, it also reviewed the relationship between the two countries. The field of friendly relations and bilateral cooperation and how to enhance the relations between the two countries", and the Saudi National Television Station did not mention anything about its visit.
Compared with the grand press conference during Pompeo's previous visit, as one of the most important partners of the United States in the Gulf and even the Middle East, the host Saudi Arabia's reception can only be described as very low-key.
Pompeo's embarrassment didn't stop there.
In Saudi Arabia, he was also robbed of a lot of limelight by another "ally".
Israeli media reported that on the same day that Pompeo visited Saudi Arabia, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu secretly arrived in the New Future City in northwestern Saudi Arabia, accompanied by the head of the intelligence agency Mossad, and met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed. , And Pompeo only appeared as a supporting role.
As soon as the news came out, it occupies the headlines of most of the media in the Middle East, and only the domestic media in Saudi Arabia kept secrets about it.
If the news is true, this will be the highest-level meeting between Israeli and Saudi officials so far, but the Saudi Foreign Minister has posted on social media denying that the existence of the meeting has once again become Rashomon.
Pompeo's trip sparked many protests
From the 18th to the 20th of this month, Pompeo visited Israel and visited the Psaga Winery and Golan Heights in the West Bank. These two places have been the focus of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Ashrawi, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, pointedly pointed out that Palestine will formally file a complaint to the United Nations regarding Pompeo's violation of international law.
She said that the visit to the West Bank was "the last struggle of the outgoing US government" and Pompeo was paving the way for her political ambitions.
The entire world needs to recover from the "Trump legacy" and the chaos caused by it, and Palestine looks forward to cooperating with responsible countries.
Pompeo's move also caused strong dissatisfaction in Syria.
The Syrian official media pointed out that Pompeo's behavior was full of provocations and was a flagrant violation of Syrian sovereignty.
Look at Turkey again.
As early as July this year, Turkish President Erdogan signed a presidential decree to change the Hagia Sophia Museum back to the mosque. This move was publicly opposed and criticized by Pompeo.
When meeting with the leader of the Turkish Orthodox Church this time, Pompeo expressed his "firm stand on religious freedom" and discussed religious issues in Turkey.
The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement condemning this itinerary and ridiculed each other.
The statement emphasized that the itinerary is “extremely inappropriate” and it is recommended that the United States “look in the mirror first” and should maintain “necessary actions” regarding human rights violations in its own country, such as racism, Islamophobia, hate crimes, etc. sensitive".
In addition, dozens of Turkish citizens held demonstrations in Istanbul to protest against Pompeo's visit, and even chanted slogans such as "Down with US imperialism" and "Yanks go home".
And below the Twitter message of Pompeo's visit to the UAE, netizens commented like this:
Netizen NewGeneration_Advocate: The worst secretary of state ever.
(Arab netizen) Fakhar Yousafzai: This is not for regional stability. Your policy destroys the world and makes the world unstable.
Netizen sandy anderson: I am glad that he will have to leave within 60 days.
Why did Pompeo "cold" in the Middle East
Everything that has a cause must have an effect.
The Middle East policy and diplomatic strategy that Trump has pursued since he took office has doomed Pompeo's situation today.
Turkey, as a major country in the Middle East and a member of NATO, was originally a "target" of the United States.
Since the attempted coup in Turkey in July 2016, the Turkish side has determined that the coup was planned by the Turkish religious figure Gulen. However, on the issue of the extradition of Gulen from the United States, Turkey has repeatedly run into barriers to cause barriers.
Since then, on a series of issues such as the Syrian battlefield, the Kurdish armed forces, and Turkey's purchase of the Russian S-400 air defense missile system, the two countries have "moved away" as their differences and disputes gradually increased.
On the Palestine-Israel issue, the United States on the one hand throws out the so-called "Agreement of the Century" to support Israel's establishment of the capital Jerusalem and recognition of its "sovereignty" in Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
This seemingly advocating peace agreement is actually the Trump administration abandoning the interests of the Palestinian people in order to win the support of Israel and Jewish groups in the United States.
This move not only attracted large-scale demonstrations in many countries in the Middle East, but also caused widespread condemnation and dissatisfaction in the Arab world.
In addition, in recent years, the United States has tried to create a "new pattern in the Middle East," that is, uniting Israel and its Arab allies against Iran.
For the time being, Arab-Israeli relations still have deep doubts about each other due to historical and other reasons. It is difficult for the two sides to reach agreement on key concerns. Even the United States is trying to form the so-called "Persian Gulf Escort Alliance" in the region. The respondent was very few.
In contrast to Iran, the US’s extreme pressure and severe sanctions have not hurt the fundamentals. Iran has won the support of the international community, including Middle Eastern countries, on many regional issues.
Since the two Gulf countries of the UAE and Bahrain established diplomatic relations with Israel, although current senior US officials have always advocated that Saudi Arabia will establish diplomatic relations with Israel in a short period of time, just a few days before Pompeo’s visit to Saudi Arabia, Saudi Foreign Minister Feisa Al bin Falhan once again emphasized that Saudi Arabia will continue to adhere to the consistent position of most Arab countries, that is, not to establish relations with Israel until the conflict between Israel and Palestine is resolved and the Palestinian state is formally established, directly denying the United States' claims.
Unilaterally withdraw from the Iranian nuclear agreement and vigorously pressure Iran, and increase arms sales in the Middle East year by year. At the same time, it announced plans to withdraw troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, especially the open assassination of the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Brigade in Iraq at the beginning of this year. Manny directly caused the Middle East to linger on the brink of war, and made many of the proud "allies" of the United States in the Middle East at risk.
The United States, which frequently undermines international norms, considers not peace and stability in the Middle East, but for its own benefit, trying to tear and break the existing pattern in the Middle East and turn it into a "powder keg" again.
In fact, it is the Trump administration's policy of randomly provoking geopolitical disputes and contempt for diplomatic consensus that has made the Middle East chaotic in recent years, and even Qatar's diplomatic crisis has been spoiled by the United States.
The fundamental purpose of the extreme policies pursued by Trump, Pompeo and other American politicians is to intensify regional conflicts and benefit from them.
As Iran’s Foreign Minister Zarif said recently: “Trump’s foreign policy is one of the most failed foreign policies in the history of the United States. As a powerful country, the United States has adopted a method to force many people to adopt it out of fear. Its opinion. There is no doubt that Mr. Pompeo will also be recognized as the worst secretary of state in U.S. history.” In an article published in the Financial Times, the title of the article more intuitively explains why Paeo's "Farewell Journey" seemed so sad-"The whole world will pay for Trump's Middle East policy."
(Headquarters reporter Li Jiannan, Gu Yuting, Tang Xiangwei, Zhang Yuchen, Wang Wei, Li Chao)