Comment by paganel

1 month ago

You and I are private citizens, he’s former US Secretary of State, let’s quit the charade.

“Former” is operative. I don’t see any reason to believe that Pompeo has special insider knowledge here, and sharing it makes zero sense even if he did. The more parsimonious explanation is that he’s a sidelined grifter whose only way to stay relevant is to speculate on social media.

  • After reading Walter Isaacson's biography of US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, I would be extremely surprised to find that a former Secretary of State was suddenly out of the loop on major events.

    • Henry Kissinger was a notorious power broker, and basically remained "in the loop" until the day he died. Pompeo is neither of these things.

      But there's an even simpler way to reach this conclusion: given everything you and I know about Pompeo's politics, is there any reason to believe he'd want to introduce doubt about the legitimacy of popular protest in Iran?