As regular readers know, I am a fan of Ron DeSantis. I think other Republicans, like Marco Rubio, could also make good presidential candidates in 2024. And I think former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo should be included in that mix.
Pompeo is a brilliant and extraordinarily competent guy who has succeeded spectacularly in every part of his career, from the military to academia to business to Congress to the highest reaches of the Executive Branch. In that regard, you could say he is sort of an anti-Joe Biden. Pompeo was the keynote speaker at American Experiment’s Annual Dinner in May. That gave me the opportunity to spend some time with him. What struck me that evening was how personable Pompeo is–far more the natural politician than I expected.
I did a Q and A with Pompeo after his speech that night, and subsequently we recorded a similar conversation for the current issue of Thinking Minnesota, which hit mailboxes this week and became available online today. You can read my full Q and A with Pompeo here. This was our exchange on the current left-leaning leadership of America’s armed forces:
The Ukraine war as it’s progressed so far has illustrated how important morale is in combat. Some people are concerned that the woke ideologies that seem to be infiltrating our armed forces could adversely impact our own morale. Is that a valid concern?
I’ve written about this. As a former soldier, I’m very worried when I see leadership in the United States military focused on anything but excellence; focused on anything but war fighting; focused on anything but actually being prepared to execute the dangerous mission that the commander in chief will have to call on them to do. And the United States military has always been good about diversity and bringing in those best suited to particular skill sets. But when you begin to focus on diversity, inclusion and equity — when you start to talk about things that aren’t directly related to war fighting, and the capacity to deliver lethal outcomes to your adversaries — not only will you have a less capable fighting force, but morale will fall. We have an all-volunteer service. The young men and women who have always come forward, who have gone to their recruiter’s office and signed up for OCS — they’ve volunteered to serve. They will say, “I don’t want to be part of any organization that doesn’t understand its central mission. And I’ll go take my talents and skills elsewhere.” I’m worried about what this might mean for our military, two or five or 10 years from now.
As you probably know, Iran’s mullahs have issued a fatwa calling for Pompeo to be assassinated. Security for our May event was extraordinarily tight, if mostly unobtrusive; our venue was probably the safest place in the U.S. that evening. I asked Pompeo about the killing of Soleimani, which may have put his own life at risk:
You mentioned Iran. How has the killing of Soleimani, their head terrorist, changed the military and political calculus in the region?
The strike on Soleimani mattered for multiple reasons. The first was he was trying to kill Americans. He was actively engaged in a real-time plot to kill more Americans. He had already killed some 500 or 600 Americans in the Iran-Iraq war. Soleimani was the head of the IRGC Quds Force, their external terror operation. He was a bad guy, and he didn’t like America. Even the day we struck him, he was engaged in a mission in Baghdad, Iraq, to build out a plot to kill even more Americans. So, in the first instance, we slowed that down. Second, the world saw what we did. Deterrence matters. It comes from strength. It comes from being real. It comes from actually executing on the things you told people you would do. And we had made a commitment.
We had made a commitment that we were not going to let Iran push us around. They’d shot down two American UAVs, and we had the opportunity to strike their most senior general. It sent notice to the world and to Iraq. And their behavior changed. We saw them change the way they thought about the United States. They knew we were serious. They knew if we drew a line, we were going to defend it, and we didn’t draw lines everywhere. We didn’t send the 82nd Airborne. We didn’t send the 101st Airborne Division. We didn’t send a Marine amphibious force. We used American power in a restrained way to reflect a real situation on the ground. And not only did we place deterrence on stronger footing with Iran, but the whole world noticed. They all saw that the United States was serious and determined.
The whole conversation is worth your time, and Mike Pompeo is worth considering as a 2024 presidential candidate.
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