2020年，《華盛頓郵報》和《紐約時報》評價龐培歐為「史上最差國務卿」
2020年，《華盛頓郵報》和《紐約時報》評價龐培歐為「史上最差國務卿」
作为国务卿，迈克-蓬佩奥主持了与朝鲜谈判的失败，对伊朗施压运动的失败，以及推翻委内瑞拉独裁政权的失败尝试。在他的监督下，中国在其新疆地区进行了种族灭绝，并压制了香港的自由，而华盛顿没有进行抵抗，直到为时已晚。
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蓬佩奥未能填补国务院的数十个高级职位，数百名职业外交官已经离开或在政治清洗中被赶走。士气处于历史低点：在员工调查中，在2016年至2019年期间，那些说国务院高级领导人 "没有保持高度的诚实和正直 "的人增加了34%。也许这是因为蓬佩奥本人藐视国会的法律授权，绕过限制向沙特阿拉伯出售武器的法律，让工作人员为自己和妻子跑腿，并解雇了调查他违规行为的监察长。
上周，蓬佩奥又一次越过了道德底线，在共和党全国代表大会上发言，从而无视国务院对这种露面的明确法律指导。他发表的演讲软弱无力，充斥着虚假或根本可笑的主张，例如，以色列和阿拉伯联合酋长国之间最近的外交协议是 "我们的孙子会在他们的历史书中读到的交易"。也许如果他们主修中东事务的话。
蓬佩奥的野心很可能固定在2024年的总统候选人资格上，他无疑希望大部分外交灾难最终会归咎于特朗普总统，特别是如果特朗普在11月的选举中失利的话。但这位前堪萨斯州议员不应该这么容易脱身。没错，这是特朗普的外交政策。但蓬佩奥对它的引导导致了美国几十年来遭受的一些最严重的外交损害--特别是在与最亲密盟友的关系上。
一个很好的例子可以从本月联合国安理会关于伊朗的辩论中看到。在其他新闻的压力下，特朗普政府未能延长即将到期的联合国对伊朗的武器禁运，这一点没有得到太多的关注。但它提供了一个有说服力的例子，说明蓬佩奥是如何将美国政策推向盲道的。
对伊朗的施压运动一直是蓬佩奥的标志性事业。特朗普在2018年4月蓬佩奥担任国务卿13天后宣布美国退出限制伊朗核计划的多边协议。总统说他想通过谈判达成另一项协议，但蓬佩奥迅速采取行动阻止了这一做法，他提出了十几项德黑兰必须满足的意义深远的条件，并让人们知道他自己的目标是政权更迭。
当然，这并没有发生。尽管美国的制裁越来越多，而且无人机袭击杀死了伊朗最重要的将军，但阿亚图拉-阿里-哈梅内伊的政权仍然保持不变，并加强了其铀浓缩活动。到今年夏天，伊朗的浓缩铀储存量比蓬佩奥开始征战时增加了五倍。
这让我们看到了安理会的争斗，蓬佩奥试图强行通过延长联合国对伊朗的武器禁运，该禁运将于10月到期。尽管美国的盟友对允许德黑兰出售和购买武器没有兴趣，但他们认识到，新的禁运会破坏核协议的剩余部分，促使伊朗驱逐仍在监督其活动的联合国检查人员。他们的结论是，这就是蓬佩奥的真正意图。
结果是对美国的决议进行了羞辱性的一边倒的投票，英国、德国和法国拒绝支持。蓬佩奥的反应是公开抨击这些盟国--他说，这些盟国 "选择站在阿亚图拉一边"。一周后，他加倍努力，通知安理会，美国将寻求援引核协议中允许一国政府单方面迫使联合国重新实施制裁的条款--尽管华盛顿不再是该协议的缔约国。
这为一场更加激烈的战斗埋下了伏笔。上周，安理会主席宣布，除一个成员国外，所有成员国都认为美国的赌博是非法的。美国的反应是什么？另一份声明指责其最亲密的盟友 "与恐怖分子为伍"。前国务院欧洲事务主管丹尼尔-弗里德说，蓬佩奥 "似乎对分裂感到无端的高兴"。他告诉我，美国与欧洲的关系是 "我所记得的最糟糕的"。
当30天的等待期在9月底到期时，特朗普政府可能坚持认为对伊朗的全球制裁重新生效。如果它这样做，世界上大多数国家，包括主要的民主国家，可能都会忽视这一企图。美国将明显地处于孤立状态。而迈克-蓬佩奥作为历史上最糟糕的国务卿的任期将达到其神化程度。
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As secretary of state, Mike Pompeo has presided over the collapse of negotiations with North Korea, the failure of a pressure campaign against Iran and an abortive attempt to oust Venezuela’s authoritarian regime. On his watch, China has carried out genocide in its Xinjiang region and the suppression of Hong Kong’s freedoms without resistance from Washington until it was too late.
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Pompeo has failed to fill dozens of senior positions at the State Department, and hundreds of career diplomats have left or been driven out in political purges. Morale is at a historic low: In staff surveys, there has been a 34 percent increase between 2016 and 2019 in those who say the State Department’s senior leaders “did not maintain high levels of honesty and integrity.” Maybe that’s because Pompeo himself has defied legal mandates from Congress, skirted a law restricting arms sales to Saudi Arabia, tasked staffers with carrying out errands for himself and his wife, and fired the inspector general who was investigating his violations.
Last week, Pompeo crossed yet another ethical line by speaking before the Republican National Convention, thereby disregarding the State Department’s explicit legal guidance against such appearances. The speech he delivered was weak and littered with false or simply ludicrous claims, such as that the recent diplomatic accord between Israel and the United Arab Emirates is “a deal that our grandchildren will read about in their history books.” Maybe if they major in Middle Eastern affairs.
With his ambitions likely fixed on a presidential candidacy in 2024, Pompeo is undoubtedly hoping most of the diplomatic disasters will ultimately be blamed on President Trump, especially if Trump loses the November election. But the former Kansas congressman should not get off so easy. Yes, it’s Trump’s foreign policy. But Pompeo’s steering of it has led to some of the worst diplomatic damage the United States has suffered in decades — especially in relations with its closest allies.
A good example can be seen in the debates over Iran this month at the U.N. Security Council. Amid the press of other news, the Trump administration’s failure to extend an expiring U.N. arms embargo against Iran hasn’t gotten much attention. But it offers a telling illustration of how Pompeo has driven U.S. policy into blind alleys.
The pressure campaign against Iran has been Pompeo’s signature cause: Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from the multilateral accord restraining Iran’s nuclear program 13 days after Pompeo became secretary of state in April 2018. The president said he wanted to negotiate another deal, but Pompeo quickly moved to head that off, setting a dozen far-reaching conditions Tehran would have to meet and letting it be known his own goal was regime change.
Which, of course, hasn’t happened. Despite mounting U.S. sanctions and a drone strike killing its most important general, the regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has remained intact and has stepped up its uranium enrichment. By this summer Iran had quintupled the stockpile of enriched uranium it had when Pompeo’s crusade began.
That brings us to the battles at the Security Council, where Pompeo tried to force through an extension of the U.N. arms embargo against Iran, which is due to expire in October. Though U.S. allies have no interest in allowing Tehran to sell and buy weapons, they recognized that a new embargo would rupture what remains of the nuclear deal, prompting Iran to expel the U.N. inspectors who are still monitoring its activities. That, they concluded, was Pompeo’s real intent.
The result was a humiliatingly lopsided vote against the U.S. resolution, with Britain, Germany and France withholding support. Pompeo’s reaction was to publicly trash the allies — who, he said, “chose to side with the ayatollahs.” A week later, he doubled down, notifying the Security Council that the United States would seek to invoke a provision of the nuclear accord allowing one government to unilaterally force the reimposition of U.N. sanctions — even though Washington is no longer a party to the pact.
That has set the stage for an even more bruising battle. Last week, the Security Council’s president announced that all but one member of the council had rejected the U.S. gambit as illegal. The U.S. reaction? Another statement accusing its closest allies of “standing in the company of terrorists.” Pompeo, says Daniel Fried, a former State Department chief for Europe, “seemed to take gratuitous pleasure in division.” U.S. relations with Europe, he told me, are the “worst I can remember.”
When a 30-day waiting period expires in late September, the Trump administration may insist that global sanctions on Iran are back in force. If it does, the attempted fiat probably will be ignored by most of the world, including the leading democracies. The United States will stand visibly isolated. And Mike Pompeo’s tenure as history’s worst secretary of state will have reached its apotheosis.
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