Pompeo Nomination and a Look Back at CPAC

Statement on Pompeo Nomination
In response to news of Rex Tillerson's firing and C.I.A. Director Mike Pompeo taking his place as Secretary of State, Jon Rainwater, Executive Director of Peace Action, the nation's largest peace and justice grassroots organization, released the following statement:

"By tapping Mike Pompeo to be Secretary  of State, Trump is handing over the reins of U.S. diplomacy to one of the most hawkish members of his administration. For all of Tillerson's flaws, he served as a check on Trump's more hawkish positions. With Pompeo, Trump' worst instincts on Iran and North Korea will be reinforced. Pompeo [has] not only said his goal is 'rolling back' the 'disastrous' Iran nuclear deal, he earlier suggested military strikes as an alternative to  diplomacy.

"In 2014, as part of his efforts to block President Obama's diplomacy, Pompeo promoted a military approach. Pompeo made clear that he preferred military strikes to the diplomatic efforts that had already resulted in an interim agreement, saying 'In an unclassified setting, it is under 2,000 sorties to destroy the Iranian nuclear capacity. This is not an insurmountable task for the coalition forces.'

"North Korea is likely the most high stakes diplomatic issue facing the U.S., but Pompeo's approach to North Korea is far from diplomatic. Pompeo recently said that 'there will be no concessions made' during negotiations. Pompeo has also signaled his interest in a policy of regime change in North Korea. Threatening regime change while ruling out the normal give-and-take nature of negotiations is a surefire strategy to kill the otherwise promising diplomatic progress on the Korean Peninsula in its crib.

"Secretary Tillerson presided over a shameful erosion of the diplomatic capacity of the United States. Critical positions remain vacant and morale among those left at the State Department is as low as ever, While Pompeo could end up being a more competent administrator, his extreme policy views threaten to gut U.S. diplomatic capacity further by making war the go-to option rather a last resort."

The U.S. military is certainly preparing to carry out a presidential order for war. Besides undertaking a host of war games with South Korea over the past year, it has moved long-range B-52, B-1, and "stealth" B-2 bombers to Guam, from which they can strike North Korea with nuclear or conventional bombs. The Defense Department has also been testing the world's most powerful non-nuclear bomb, the 30,000 GBU-57, which has the capacity to plow through hundreds of feet of earth to destroy "hardened" weapons silos.

A Look Back at CPAC
Despite the Trump administration succeeding in implementing a hyperconservative agenda, CPAC favorites Ted Cruz and Ben Shapiro acknowledged that they had no substantive disagreements with Trump. Nevertheless, the entire event was defined by victimhood and paranoia. The enemies are everywhere: Democrats, socialists,college professors, regulators, black athletes, reporters, "fake news," the FBI. "They try like hell, they can't stand what we've done," Trump said ominously.

Trump's speech was the climax of a CPAC defined by seething, spastic vitriol from nearly every featured speaker. National Rifle Association spokesperson Dana Loesch declared "many in the legacy media love mass shootings." Wayne Lapierre, the executive vice president and CEO of the NRA, claimed Democrats were conspiring to "eradicate all individual freedoms." Ben Shapiro, the right-wing polemicist who recently received a glowing profile in "The New York Times," repeated his familiar anti-transgender bigotry, to the delight of the audience. The anger was even more pronounced in the wake of the Parkland shooting, which was referenced regularly over the course of the conference.

Trump repeatedly warned the crowd that if Democrats were elected they would repeal the Second Amendment, and at one point asked the attendees to cheer if they preferred the Second Amendment or tax cuts. It was a bizarre moment, one of many, but suffice it to say that the Second  Amendment received very loud support. That defensive posture in the midst of a seeming sea change in the gun-control debate was not a coincidence, and a clear sign that the CPAC doesn't see itself as responsible for the prevalence of mass shootings.