Caroline Glick . . . "It took Trump a year to finally overcome the opposition of the professional bureaucracy at the State Department and the Defense Department, and overrule the opposition of his then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to recognize Israel’s capital, Jerusalem. Trump had to overcome further opposition from his senior advisors and the consensus view of the foreign policy establishment to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
"So too, to walk away from Obama’s signature foreign policy, his 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, Trump had to overcome opposition from Mattis, the foreign policy establishment, the European Union, and the media.
"Trump has faced attempts by Obama alumni and the media to undermine his strategy of undermining Iran through a mix of economic sanctions on Iran and strengthening U.S. allies and alliances in the Sunni Arab world. The media hysteria over the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, an al-Qaeda sympathizer who wrote columns for the Washington Post, was a transparent attempt to undermine Trump’s ability to work with Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman.
"In Syria, Mattis and other senior officials worked to preserve Obama’s policy of limiting U.S. operations and focus to fighting Islamic State forces while ignoring Iranian and Iranian proxy forces operating in Syria.
"On Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo dismantled the ideological foundation of Obama’s Middle East policy, at the very place where Obama first set it out.
"Less than six months after Obama took office, he set out his perception of America’s rightful position in the world generally, and the Middle East, in particular at a speech at American University in Cairo. His speech, “A New Beginning,” was billed as a speech to the “Muslim World.”
"Obama’s address was the most radical, most anti-American speech any U.S. president had ever delivered. In his speech at American University in Cairo, Pompeo rejected all aspects of Obama’s address — and in so doing, set out the intellectual foundations of Trump’s view of America’s position and role as superpower in the Middle East.
"Obama opened his speech in Cairo by vilifying America and the West. He cast the blame for bad relations between the U.S. and the Islamic world on America and its Western allies.
