The United States is organizing an international summit in Poland next month, focusing on Iran’s Middle Eastern influence, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday.
Pompeo made the announcement in an interview with the network during a regional tour aimed at reassuring US allies after President Donald Trump’s shock decision to withdraw all American troops from Syria, which sparked concerns that Iran’s influence could grow.
“We’ll bring together dozens of countries from all around the world,” Pompeo told Fox News.
They will “focus on Middle East stability and peace and freedom and security here in this region, and that includes an important element of making sure that Iran is not a destabilizing influence,” the top US diplomat said.
The event will take place on February 13 and 14.
Pompeo brought the Trump administration’s anti-Iran message to Gulf Arab states on Friday as he continued his nine-nation tour of the Middle East.
He was traveling to Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, where he will call for increasing pressure on Iran and push for unity among Gulf neighbors still embroiled in a festering dispute with Qatar. He’ll also be promoting a US-backed initiative to form what some have termed an “Arab NATO” that would bring the sregion together in a military alliance to counter threats from Iran.
In Bahrain, the UAE and later Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Kuwait, Pompeo will also be making the case as he did on previous stops in Jordan, Iraq and Egypt that Trump’s decision to pull US troops from Syria is not a sign Washington is retreating from the fight against the Islamic State group.
US partnerships with the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council “are critical to achieving shared regional objectives: defeating ISIS, countering radical Islamic terrorism, protecting global energy supplies, and rolling back Iranian aggression,” the State Department said in a statement released as Pompeo departed Egypt for Bahrain, which is home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet.
But the now two-year-old crisis between GCC members Saudi Arabia and UAE and Qatar has hampered US attempts to forge a unified front against Iran. Washington’s efforts to ease the dispute, begun by former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, have thus far failed and took another hit this week when the former general tasked to broker a solution stepped down.
“A united GCC is the backbone for regional peace, prosperity, security and stability, and is essential to countering the single greatest threat to regional stability: the Iranian regime,” the State Department said.
At each of his stops in the Gulf, Pompeo will be urging progress on creating the Middle East Strategic Alliance, which would join GCC militaries with those of Egypt and Jordan to serve as a counterbalance to Iran, which they all accuse of fomenting unrest and rebellion throughout the region.
Pompeo kicked off the Gulf portion of his tour after a stop in Cairo, where he delivered a scathing rebuke of former president Barack Obama’s Middle East policies that Obama had outlined in a 2009 address to the Arab and broader Muslim world.
In a speech entitled “A Force for Good: America’s Reinvigorated Role in the Middle East,” Pompeo accused the former president of “misguided” thinking that diminished America’s role in the region while harming its longtime friends and emboldening Iran.
He unloaded on the Obama administration for being naive and timid when confronted with challenges posed by the revolts that convulsed the Middle East, including Egypt, beginning in 2011. And, he said the Trump administration was taking action to repair the damage.
He said Obama ignored the growth of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement in Lebanon to the detriment of Israel’s security and not doing enough to push back on Iran-supported rebels in Yemen.
Since withdrawing from the nuclear deal last year, the administration has steadily ratcheted up pressure on Tehran and routinely accuses the nation of being the most destabilizing influence in the region. It has vowed to increase the pressure until Iran halts what US officials describe as its “malign activities” throughout the Mideast and elsewhere, including support for rebels in Yemen, anti-Israel groups, and Syrian President Bashar Assad.
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