Many suspect that the secretary of state is already eyeing a 2024 presidential bid. And he appears to be using his last days in office to promote it.
DURING SECRETARY OF State Mike Pompeo’s tour through Europe and the Middle East last month, officials managing the trip mistakenly released a document to journalists traveling with him that contained an unusual phrase to describe U.S. policy toward Israel: the “Pompeo Doctrine.”
Recent administrations going back to Harry Truman have been associated with foreign policy doctrines, but traditional protocol in naming them defers to the president – not the chief diplomat. And Pompeo’s staff quickly seemed to sense the presumptuousness, redacting the document and instructing reporters not to share it. State Department officials have repeatedly declined to answer questions about the term on the record and privately discourage its use in the public sphere.
The reference could have been employed as a joke or a private aside among the chief diplomat, his staff and friendly officials at the newly located U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem during his stop to tout Israeli businesses in the contested West Bank. Or it could have been an unguarded look at the scope of his ambitions. Continue reading.