POMPEO: The Sheriff Is Back in Town – How President Trump’s Leadership on the Global Stage Is Already Getting Results
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President Trump demonstrated in his first term that resolute and principled American leadership on the global stage can deliver positive outcomes for America and its allies. His recent statement calling on Hamas to release the remaining hostages taken on October 7 was a continuation of his unique – and successful – style of leadership, which will send an important message not only to Hamas but also to the major players in the Middle East and beyond. The message? The sheriff is back in town.
President Trump’s statement to Hamas, which warned that “if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025 . . . there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity,” comes at a crucial moment. Hamas’ barbaric actions over a year ago on October 7 — including the kidnapping of civilians, even women and children — weren’t just attacks on Israel; they were an assault on the values that bind the entire Western world together.
Hamas should not be rewarded for taking hostages or committing heinous acts of terror by being granted peace talks that allow its existence to continue – something the Biden Administration has pushed for months. No, this Iranian terrorist proxy must be dismantled entirely, and it is in America’s core interests that we help Israel achieve this core objective by giving the Jewish state all the political and material support it needs.
This is why President Trump’s statement was so timely and important: It not only reinforced America’s support for Israel; it laid a clear marker that will begin to rebuild America’s core model of deterrence that has been in a state of decay for four years.
Predictably, the President-elect’s statement generated a reaction similar to what we experienced in his first term. Just as we were called reckless warmongers for our maximum pressure campaign against Iran, outlets have now labeled President Trump’s warning a “promise of escalation,” while others have dusted off their tired claims of calling President Trump a warmonger once more. Such assertions are absurd. It was the Biden Administration’s muddled weakness, emblematic of the policies and attitudes favored for decades by the foreign affairs establishment in Washington, that abandoned Israel, reinvigorated Iran, and brought the specter of war crashing back to a region that had been calmed by the time the Trump Administration left office. President Trump’s statement is not reckless in the slightest; it is a necessary reassertion of the same clarity and American strength he evinced during his first term in office.
Indeed, in just a few short years, this strength and clarity yielded results many thought impossible – and it can again. We moved the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognizing the Holy City as Israel’s rightful, indivisible capital. We utilized sanctions and targeted strikes to massively deteriorate Iran’s ability to maintain a proxy network capable of threatening Israel or its neighbors. These efforts brought peace to the Middle East. We took the vision of President Trump and made it possible through hard decisions and harder work each and every day, even in the face of a mainstream press that called us reckless warmongers and an entrenched federal bureaucracy committed to undermining our mission with endless leaks, slow rolling, and feigned incompetence.
In the end, though, we proved that our work was not a precursor to World War III, nor was it a diplomatic blunder that would set America back decades. In fact, quite the opposite resulted. By providing moral clarity, leadership, and strength, we forged the historic Abraham Accords and paved a brighter future for the entire region. President Trump’s statement signals a return to this approach, and it should be applauded.
Pressing challenges lie beyond the Israel-Hamas war, and it will take similar clarity, strength, and wise engagement to resolve them while keeping America safe. President Trump will assume office facing multiple wars spanning Europe and the Middle East, a rapidly deteriorating Central and South America, and an emboldened Chinese Communist Party that is poised to bring far greater pressure on Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific region. The good news is that America finally has a President again, and he is already leading the free world from his base at Mar-a-Lago.
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