Thank you for posting this interview with the Tea Party Triumphalist Pompeo (and Wichita Liberty TV for preserving this artifact). During this interview he prides himself on opposition to the Economic Development Agency, one of the parts of the government bureaucracy that helps communities revitalize economically. His remarks there show him to be completely unsympathetic to any kind of government action which would revive decaying local economies. With regard to the environment, despite not having ever worked directly for an oil company, like Tillerson, he seems much more in the thrall of Big Energy (Pompeo is a darling of the Koch Bros.), and much less sympathetic to environmental imperatives, as he talks about letting the market suffice for renewables.

What a difference between him and Tillerson! Pompeo sounds like he’ll be much more inclined to antagonize Russia, much more like a Mrs. Clinton as a Secretary of State. Much “tougher” on the drawing of red lines and the prosecution of the Greater Israel Strategy (which would see the region surrounding what was granted a right to exist carved up into non-secular Statelets, Sectarian entities which nurture exclucivist narratives; at odds with each other but sharing Tel Aviv as their entrepot).

Tillerson did at least one good thing: He refused to certify the plebiscite that would have rended “Kurdistan” from the carcass of Iraq, and the creation of which would have poured gasoline on the fire in Syria. The stated reason for Tillerson’s replacement by Pompeo is Iran; Tillerson supported honoring the existing arrangement, Pompeo wants to tear it up. Otherwise, Tillerson was among the most knowledgeable in Trump’s team about Russia, in terms of on the ground experience. If there was an opening for rapprochement, one expected to see him at the head of the band.

Pompeo, in the Liberty TV interview, talks about Russia in the most jingoistic of terms. The congressional district that catapulted Pompeo inside the beltway is also home to the Koch Bros. It is reasonable to speculate that Koch money and organizational capacity was behind Trump’s decision to make Mike his right hand; or to speculate that whatever SOS Pompeo does will be influenced thusly. Any ruler governs by overseeing a coalition of constituencies, and the Donald instinctively would know what “needs to be done” to shore up his end. The reason for the removal of the most palpably sane member of this administration could also well involve the failure of the left to express any support for a progressive foreign policy agenda. (Progressive is hereby defined as pro-rapprochement with Russia; pro-Stop the War in Syria; and pro-leave Iran the fuck alone. All of which Tillerson was.)

This is what has made all the nattering of the #McResistance so infuriating. Aside from letting off steam and having a go, these Romper Room radicals did nothing except force Trump into a corner where unsavory met more unsavory. A principled resistance, such as Sanders advocated shortly after the inauguration, would have sought item-by-item agreement on steps toward a progressive agenda. Instead, whatever chits the DCCC had have been squandered on escalating the War for Greater Israel, and “Russia”. Russia, of course, will need to be defeated bloodily in Syria for Team Neocon to triumph. The Russiagate narrative has as a hidden premise, that Russia is our enemy.

That Schumer, the titular opposition to the Trump Administration, would effectively cheer on this change of personnel (hoping that Pompeo will be tougher on Russia), and that this is chorused by the rump of Mrs. Clintion’s coterie, shows the government uniting around a renewal of hostilities in Syria. Conventional thinking is that Syria has to be taken out before Iran can be dispensed with. Russia didn’t meddle in our elections. They blocked us from expanding Greater Israel; they saved Syria, and they’re threatening to save Iran. There’s a method to their madness.

The reason for Russiagate now becomes a bit clearer. (The question Russiagate posed was: Did our enemy Russia meddle in our election? The hidden premise was that Russia was our enemy. It was not. But if you answered the question either way, you had to admit the enemy characterization.) Not merely a cover-up for DCCC miscalculation, we’re primed now to see Russia as the enemy in the war for Syria, the war for the Greater Middle East. Will Americans cheer when a Russian soldier falls in battle? When a plane is shot down or a tank destroyed? They shouldn’t. In this war, if it comes, they should be cheering on the Russians. Does the American left and the progressive community have that much backbone?

I think Caitlan’s wrong about the (Russia-China bicycle built for two) [https://medium.com/@johnmensing/youve-gotten-yourself-into-a-false-dichotomy-here-which-started-by-my-reckoning-when-you-bought-8e89445dc6fb], though. If anything, China would be encouraging the neoliberal establishment to go against Russia. Russia is China’s most proximate rival. China is busy sending settlers to colonize Siberia, and China and Russia go toe-to-toe for influence in the former CIS countries. China and Russia are civilizational rivals. Russia is a democracy; China a Dynastic totalitarian autocracy.

(Developments in China)[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/10/chill-looks-set-linger-reporting-from-xis-china] are [more worrisome](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/china-steps-up-internet-censorship-of-criticism-of-xi-jinping/article38269470/] than those in the U.S.