Friction with Iran may bring Pompeo home
A decade ago, Mike Pompeo was a businessman forging his way into Kansas politics, having spent years fostering deep connections with the state’s most influential power brokers. He would emerge from a rollicking Republican primary and sprint away with the general election for Kansas’ 4th District Congressional seat, pummeling Democrat Raj Goyle by roughly 45,000 votes and entering the Beltway as a strong conservative with legitimate foreign policy chops and something to prove.
A mere 10 years later, Pompeo now occupies a seat in President Trump’s cockpit — a trusted cabinet member to a president whose circle of trust is immeasurably narrow. After three steady Congressional terms, Pompeo formed an immediate bond with the president-elect, serving 15 months as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency before capitalizing on Trump’s deteriorated relationship with Rex Tillerson and ascending to the top position in the State Department. For Mike Pompeo, the road ahead has been paved in political gold. If Trump nets a second term, the expectation has been that Pompeo will stay close with the president, and reports indicate he would then be a front-runner candidate for president in 2024.
But dangling in the periphery is a different prize — an option favored by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY. If McConnell had his druthers, Pompeo would step down from State tomorrow and slide easily into front-runner status for the U.S. Senate vacancy created by retiring Sen. Pat Roberts, R-KS — thus locking down a seat that will help keep the Senate in Republican hands. On Monday, Pompeo issued the latest in a string of denials with regard to his possible Senate candidacy, but this did little to quell the speculation.
While Pompeo remains heavily invested in the president’s foreign policy agenda, he has maintained a well-publicized connection to his home state, and his recent social media maneuvers suggest his campaign apparatus will be ready at a moment’s notice. Most importantly, the road ahead with Trump may well now be a primrose path to political peril, based upon the president’s high-risk decision last Thursday to order the killing of Qasem Soleimani, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force and perhaps the second most powerful man in all of Iran.
If Trump’s killing of an Iranian figurehead catapults America into another costly war with a middle power, things may change quickly at the White House. If the war does manifest and quickly becomes as politically unpopular as the Iraq War, it may move the needle in a close presidential election.
If he leads us into a politically unpopular war, Trump may begin looking for scapegoats as he struggles to salvage his presidency. There is also the potential, of course, that disagreements over handling of these high-stakes foreign policy decisions will lead to increased friction between Trump and his advisors — another road that could lead to peril for Pompeo.
If Pompeo is still on the fence, Trump’s decision to eliminate Soleimani and spark maximum tension with Iran may eventually be the determining factor. Pompeo is no fool, and he will protect his political career as long as he wishes to remain in politics. Trump has even given him an out, stating recently that Pompeo may in fact run for Senate if it appears Republicans are in danger of losing the seat.
All that’s left for Mike Pompeo is to make a move. As he monitors the situation with Iran carefully from all perspectives, and as friction intensifies, he may reverse course on Monday’s denial. And if he does, the race to replace Pat Roberts may well become a lot less interesting.