In a separate passage, one in which Mr. Trump clearly was following a script rather than freelancing, he said: “We will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments, folks.”
.. On their face, these statements suggest:
— An end to the effort to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, for the effort to throw out Mr. Assad is nothing if not an effort to topple a regime.
.. — A warmer relationship with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, a strongman who has demonstrated an unmistakable ferocity in his own fight against Islamic extremism
.. — A policy toward Iran that doubtless will be hostile and include an attempt to dissolve the Obama-negotiated deal on nuclear arms, but one that won’t include regime change in Tehran as an explicit goal.
.. Aaron David Miller, a longtime U.S. Middle East envoy and now vice president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, says this Trump approach will be “transactional.” By that he means it will use whatever means are necessary to transact the specific deal on the table, whether that deal is ending the Islamic State threat or retreating from the Iranian nuclear agreement without provoking a war.
.. The Trump formula also suggests an approach unburdened by the need for consistency or adherence to any ideological framework. One problem with that approach, though, is that it is full of inherent contradictions and potential unintended consequences.
.. So teaming up with Russia and tolerating Mr. Assad in Syria to defeat Islamic State could have the unintended consequence of further empowering Iran—much as the war to topple Saddam Hussein in Iraq had the unintended consequence of clearing the path for expanded Iranian influence in the region.
.. That won’t please America’s Persian Gulf allies, who abhor Iran’s leadership, and surely isn’t the goal of Mr. Mattis and incoming national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, whose antipathy toward Iran’s clerical regime is well documented.
.. “If you end the Iran deal you’re going to end up with a lot of awkwardness and unpleasantness with Mr. Putin,” says Mr. Miller.
Flynn’s Dangerous Goal of Regime Change
Although regime change in Iran is the central goal of the global war on terror, Flynn and Ledeen do not advocate military action. Instead they believe that the task can be accomplished politically, by lending support to the internal Iranian opposition. The Soviet Union was brought down internally, after all, so why not Iran?
Trump’s CIA pick is seen as both a fierce partisan and serious student of national security issues
In closed-door briefings on Capitol Hill, Pompeo has been an intense critic of a covert CIA program to train and arm moderate rebel forces in Syria, according to U.S. officials who said that dismantling the program — or at least subjecting it to a major re-evaluation — would likely be at the top of his agenda if he is confirmed.
.. Pompeo is not widely known among the CIA rank and file but that his nomination was greeted at least initially as a reassuring development at a spy agency that has been treated largely with disdain by Trump.
.. Pompeo’s ties to the arch-conservative tea party movement and scant background on intelligence issues were also cited as a cause for concern among some CIA veterans.
“The tea party owns the drones now,”
.. He attended a dinner this week with CIA Director John Brennan at the home of former Republican congressman Mike Rogers, who had previously been seen as a leading candidate for the CIA job under Trump. The gathering included cast and producers of the CIA-themed show “Homeland,” according to a person familiar with the event.
.. Pompeo reportedly has close ties to the Koch family, Kansas billionaires ..
.. Articles in Kansas papers indicate that Pompeo built much of his wealth with investment funds from Koch industries and that his campaigns for Congress have been backed by Koch money.
.. In just five years in Congress, he has built a political following by staking extreme positions in polarizing debates
.. Pompeo was one of the more outspoken Republican members of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, saying that the Obama administration was guilty of a scandal “worse than Watergate.”
..
During hearings, his questions to administration witnesses were often among the most accusatory. In October 2015, when Clinton testified for the second time, Pompeo grilled her on her relationship with slain U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. He asked a series of rapid-fire questions about why Stevens did not have her personal telephone number, did not know her personal home address and had never “stopped by your house.”
.. Separately, in remarks that drew sharp criticism from U.S. Muslim organizations, Pompeo said that Muslim leaders who fail to denounce acts of terrorism done in the name of Islam were “potentially complicit” in the attacks.
.. Pompeo cautioned against equating all Muslims with terrorism, saying that a “line needs to be drawn between those who are on the side of extremism and those who are fighting against them.”
Trump’s Iraqi obsession wasn’t ISIL but oil
In numerous interviews, he urged removal of troops except to ‘protect the oil’ for the United States.
As the U.S. prepared to exit Iraq in 2011, Trump offered conflicting and muddled opinions about America’s role in the country. He incorrectly predicted that Iran would “walk in” and lay claim to Iraq’s oil fields. In multiple interviews and a book, he said nothing about the threat of ISIL-style radicalism that many experts were publicly warning about at the time.
.. On at least once occasion in early 2011, Trump even said he supported a speedy U.S. withdrawal from the country. Asked by CNN’s Piers Morgan in a February 2011 interview what he would do about U.S. troops in Iraq, Trump said he would “get them out real fast.”
.. Instead, Trump fixated on the specific concern that Iran would take control of Iraq’s oil.
“Two minutes after we leave, Iran is going to come in and take the oil,” Trump told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly in an April 2011 interview. “You stay and you protect the oil.”
.. One person who did focus on the threat of Islamic terrorism in Iraq after a U.S. troop withdrawal was Hillary Clinton, whom Trump has also described in recent days as a “founder” of ISIL.
.. In his 2011 book “Time to Get Tough,” Trump argued at length that the U.S. should “protect and control the oil fields” of Iraq, which are mostly located in south Iraq, far from the Sunni territories where ISIL has operated.
Trump’s book also argued for establishing a “cost-sharing plan” that would divide Iraq’s billions of dollars in oil revenue and reimburse the U.S. for its expenses from invading and occupying the country. “Call me old school, but I believe in the old warrior’s credo that ‘to the victor go the spoils,'” Trump wrote.
.. Indeed, Trump suggested in his Wall Street Journal interview that oil profits were a reason why he approved of the 2003 invasion of Iraq—which in recent months he has insisted he always opposed, despite evidence to the contrary.