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Caroline Glick: Firing Rex Tillerson Removed an Obstacle to Middle East Peace
Breitbart ^ | 15 Mar 2018 | Caroline Glick

Posted on 03/16/2018 12:20:11 AM PDT by Texas Fossil

the White House held a Middle East summit that demonstrated Tillerson’s basic assumptions have the problems of the Middle East precisely backwards.

Under the leadership of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, along with Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s senior negotiator, Israeli officials sat in the White House for the first time with Arab officials from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, and Qatar. Representatives from Egypt and Jordan, with which Israel enjoys open diplomatic relations, were also in attendance. Canadian and European officials participated as well.

Although they were invited, the Palestinians chose to boycott the conference. Their boycott was telling. The PA claimed it was boycotting the conference in retaliation for America’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and President Trump’s plan to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on Israel’s 70th Independence Day in May.

But anger over Jerusalem doesn’t justify the snub. The purpose of the summit wasn’t to reach “the ultimate deal.” The summit was called to to formulate the means to contend with the humanitarian crises emanating from Hamas-controlled Gaza. The Palestinians boycotted a summit whose sole purpose was to help them.

(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...


TOPICS: Canada; Egypt; Foreign Affairs; Israel; News/Current Events; Syria; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: bahrain; bogietroll; canada; carolineglick; egypt; erdogan; europeanunion; gaza; hassannasrallah; hezbollah; iran; isis; israel; jaredkushner; jasongreenblatt; jerusalem; jordan; kurdistan; last8paragraphs; lebanon; letshavejerusalem; nobelpeaceprize; oman; palestinian; peace; qatar; receptayyiperdogan; rextillerson; saudiarabia; saudiarabia1; sewer; sinai; sostillerson; tenmountaintroll; tillerson; trump; trumpmiddleeast; trumppeaceplan; turkey; unitedarabemirates; waronterror
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Caroline Glick has great perspective. Please read the entire article.

I only excerpted the landmark event portion.

Now we know what happened with Tillerson. (who I still personally like)

1 posted on 03/16/2018 12:20:11 AM PDT by Texas Fossil
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To: Texas Fossil

Forgive me if I’m slow on the “uptake” but I don’t see this as Tillerson’s assumptions blowing up.


2 posted on 03/16/2018 1:28:11 AM PDT by EliRoom8
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To: Texas Fossil

http://www.unz.com/mwhitney/ww3-the-u-s-threatens-to-bomb-syria-while-putin-promises-to-retaliate/


3 posted on 03/16/2018 1:33:06 AM PDT by Bogie
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To: Texas Fossil

And Jared is the answer to world peace?
Don’t think so.


4 posted on 03/16/2018 1:36:41 AM PDT by tennmountainman ("Prophet Mountainman" Predicter Of All Things RINO...for a small fee.)
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To: tennmountainman

Return of the Neo-Cons: Mike Pompeo and the Death of Diplomacy
by Maj. Danny Sjursen Posted on March 16, 2018
Secretary Tillerson was far from an ideal choice, but his anointed successor at the State Department – Mike Pompeo – may ditch diplomacy all together and start a war!

We both attended West Point. That’s where the commonalities end. I’ve been a soldier opposed to (endless) war; he’ll be a statesman opposed to peace. That should give us cause for pause.

It is a sad day indeed when one finds himself pining for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. But that’s where we are. I never really bought into the whole success in profit-driven business equates to success in diplomacy thing. Besides, let us not forget that Tillerson gutted the State Department, failed to fill key posts, and fought to cut his own budget. That was shocking, especially given that the sitting Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, once asserted, back when he was a marine general, that if the State budget was cut, “he’d need to buy more bullets.” Nonetheless, Tillerson is out and CIA director Mike Pompeo – a far more alarming choice – is nominated to replace him.

Maybe the notoriously thin-skinned president couldn’t abide being called a “moron” by a senior cabinet secretary. Still, publicly at least, the president seemed to indicate that it was “serious policy differences” which led to the firing. Given that Secretary Tillerson regularly tempered Trump’s more extreme proposals – like tearing up the Iran deal, threatening “fire and fury” in North Korea, and backing the Saudi blockade of tiny Qatar – and that Mike Pompeo is a known Trump supplicant, that’s all the more disquieting.

The only bright spot in the move is that Trump decided not to elevate Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) – a reported frontrunner and notorious neoconservative hawk – to replace Pompeo at CIA. Nevertheless, Trump’s choice of Gina Haspel to take over the agency is potentially disturbing. Haspel served during the dark days of Bush-era torture; even notorious hawk John McCain (R-Az.) has expressed concern about her potential complicity in the torture regime, though a full accounting will no doubt come out in her confirmation hearings.

So who is Mike Pompeo? The short answer: a startlingly hawkish Tea Party Republican oilman with a penchant for combative rhetoric and a near hysterical hatred for Iran. But he’s smart – valedictorian of his West Point class and a graduate of Harvard – and that makes him even more dangerous. His primary qualification, though, is his loyalty and propensity for mind-melding with his boss, Donald Trump. For the last year, he often personally delivered Trump’s presidential daily briefing (PDB) at the White House each morning and they agree on just about everything; as Trump says of Pompeo: “we’re always on the same wavelength.”

What exactly can Americans expect from a Secretary Pompeo? It’s hard to know, for sure, but his past actions and statements offer plenty of hints. A neocon ideologue, he’ll no doubt be a savvy political actor; in a Washington where no one seems to remain for long in Donald Trump’s good graces, Pompeo has consistently impressed his boss. Last year, Harvard’s Stephen Walt called him “the most politically motivated CIA director since perhaps [Reagan-appointed] William Casey.”

He’s also pretty fanatical on a range of civil liberties issues. Pompeo is a staunch supporter of domestic surveillance, and even called for the death penalty for Edward Snowden. Steven Aftergood, a director at the Federation of American Scientists told reporters that “Mr. Pompeo is literally an extremist.”

The bigger issue is Pompeo’s neoconservative predisposition for preventive war and expansive military intervention. He’s basically a charter member of the Iran-hysteria-club dominating the contemporary Republican (and sometimes Democratic) establishment. Pompeo wants to immediately tear up the Iran deal, which will leave the U.S. as the sole party to pull out of the seven nation accord. Back in 2014, when Pompeo was still a Kansas Congressman, he boasted that it would take only “2000 sorties to destroy [i.e. bomb] the Iranian nuclear capacity.” Well, Director Pompeo, what happens the day after the US starts a war with Iran? What are the second and third-order regional effects? None of that seems important to the likes of Pompeo; he wants war with Iran, and he might just get it.

Furthermore, while CIA Director, he ordered the release of files that purportedly proved collusion between Al Qaeda and Iran. Never mind that Bin Laden and the Islamic State were longtime antagonists on opposites sides of the regional Sunni-Shia divide. Pompeo knows what he’s doing. These were the same devious tricks another neocon administration – that of George W. Bush – used to sell a deceitful invasion of Iraq. Soldiers like mine paid the price for that disaster on the streets of Baghdad. Pompeo’s a West Pointer; he should know that real American men and women will be the ones to die in the next reckless war – the one he seems to want in Iran.

It is hard to say if America has ever had a Secretary of State more pugnacious and bellicose than the Secretary of Defense, but that’s where the country will likely be in 2018, with Mike Pompeo at the helm of State. Pompeo, it appears, wants war, but it is Mattis who truly knows war; and though they’re both rather hawkish in foreign affairs, my bet is on Mattis – the Marine Corps general, no less – to exercise more caution in a crisis.

That, needless to say, is disturbing. America’s already got a Department of Defense. If Pompeo sits atop State, the US might as well ditch the veneer of diplomacy and rename the agency – call it the Department of War.

[Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author, expressed in an unofficial capacity, and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the US government.]

Danny Sjursen is a US Army officer and regular contributor to Antiwar.com. He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge. Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet.


5 posted on 03/16/2018 1:43:21 AM PDT by Bogie
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To: Bogie
So who is Mike Pompeo?

I am still eager to hear that question answered. But for one, I seem to know that Pompeo is one that looks at the problem as a spiritual battle.

The Western World, the Christian World, if you will, is not safe as long as we continue to pander to those whole faith includes elements of radicals that see their purpose as to eliminate Israel, and kill Christians. The PA seem to only understand a culture of death and misery. They do not have solid answers for their people when they subsidize those that commit horrendous acts of violence and death.

There is no future for them in that mind-set

6 posted on 03/16/2018 4:36:20 AM PDT by Dustoff45 ( The secret to success - Love God, Israel and the unborn child.)
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To: Dustoff45
whole faith includes = Whose faith includes.

I try to edit my comments before I post, checking for mispelling. Wish we had an edit function, even one that allowed for a short time frame of an option to edit.

7 posted on 03/16/2018 4:39:03 AM PDT by Dustoff45 ( The secret to success - Love God, Israel and the unborn child.)
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To: Texas Fossil

A very interesting, informative article by Caroline Glick highlighting the difference between bad leadership and good leadership. Thanks for posting.

HOORAY President Donald J. Trump

Rule of Law / Producers vs Parasites BUMP!


8 posted on 03/16/2018 5:01:50 AM PDT by PGalt
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To: tennmountainman

I am willing to give the kid a chance. So far he hasn’t made it worse and the meeting referred to in the OP was pretty much his doing.


9 posted on 03/16/2018 5:05:18 AM PDT by mad_as_he$$
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To: Texas Fossil

The press wants to claim chaos in the West Wing and that it is confusing our allies.

Imagine the confusion among our allies created by Tillerson going around and saying the opposite of what Trump says on the Iranian deal. Who are they supposed to believe? Do they wonder if Trump is saying one thing publicly while acting on the opposite in reality? Is Tillerson actually doing the bidding of Trump?


10 posted on 03/16/2018 5:23:31 AM PDT by odawg
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To: Dustoff45

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pompeo

Maybe some information here.


11 posted on 03/16/2018 5:48:16 AM PDT by Bogie
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To: odawg

It appears that Tillerson in at least some cases, did not do as he was told to do.

I personally like Tillerson.

Is hard for me to imagine trying to deal with Erdogan the Islamist dictator of Turkey. And Erdogan’s “officials”.

In the oil business, he could always step away from the state intrigue. As Secretary of State is it not like that.

Seems to me we are facing a direct assault on the Deep State now. And Trump is restaffing to allow that to be accomplished.

I was amazed that Tillerson could even be talked into accepting the job of Secretary of State.

I’m repeatedly surprised and amazed at the instincts of Trump. He and Tillerson have some powerful common traits. I’ve seen this type of thing in internal company struggles in my own life.


12 posted on 03/16/2018 6:17:04 AM PDT by Texas Fossil ((Texas is not where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind & Attitude!))
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To: PGalt

Thank you.


13 posted on 03/16/2018 6:17:44 AM PDT by Texas Fossil ((Texas is not where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind & Attitude!))
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To: tennmountainman

I don’t think Jared is that, but you cannot argue that the meeting that Glick described is one of a kind. Seems like Donald Trump specializes in that sort of thing.

The Israeli ties of Trump’s family is long. He has know Bibi a very long time.

You must admit, Saudi Arabia and Israel talking openly? And young people involved in discussion of US, Israel and Saudi Arabia? That is amazing.


14 posted on 03/16/2018 6:22:04 AM PDT by Texas Fossil ((Texas is not where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind & Attitude!))
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To: EliRoom8

Do you mean relations with the inhabitant of Gaza?

They will not ever come to the table honestly. So, if we stop supporting them they will be forced to deal with it or be replaced by someone who will.

After years and years of coddling them, nothing has worked because we have allowed them to be this way. This is typical Trump, go straight to the problem and deal with it.


15 posted on 03/16/2018 6:26:39 AM PDT by Texas Fossil ((Texas is not where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind & Attitude!))
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To: Texas Fossil

Tillerson disagreed with Trump on Israel, Iran, Russia, North Korea... I don’t for the life of me understand how he got the job when he doesn’t agree with Trump on anything.

Unless he simply wasn’t honest about his beliefs from the beginning. Because Trump was very plain on his positions, about three speeches a day every day for a year and a half.


16 posted on 03/16/2018 7:00:25 AM PDT by marron
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To: marron

Well, on the face of his nomination he had the knowledge of the region and was a breath of fresh air compared to the typical striped pants State Department type.

Both Trump and Tillerson have been accustomed to directing their own powerful operation.

Right now, we need to quickly regain control. Lots of pieces are in play in the Middle East. An explosive environment.


17 posted on 03/16/2018 7:07:45 AM PDT by Texas Fossil ((Texas is not where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind & Attitude!))
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To: Bogie

Interesting article. I hope the author is wrong in his assessment, but anything out of the CIA is not reassuring.


18 posted on 03/16/2018 7:15:32 AM PDT by Psalm 144 (Ace McCain: The tumor is a rumor but the boot was a hoot.)
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To: Texas Fossil

“Well, on the face of his nomination he had the knowledge of the region and was a breath of fresh air compared to the typical striped pants State Department type.”

Almost any change in the State Department is worth the risk. Crawling out of the Clinton/Kerry abyss will be arduous.


19 posted on 03/16/2018 7:22:02 AM PDT by Psalm 144 (Ace McCain: The tumor is a rumor but the boot was a hoot.)
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To: Bogie

Ron Unz: Controversial Writer and Funder of Anti-israel Activists

https://www.adl.org/news/article/ron-unz-controversial-writer-and-funder-of-anti-israel-activists

I’d never heard of him.


20 posted on 03/16/2018 7:22:26 AM PDT by Texas Fossil ((Texas is not where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind & Attitude!))
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