This action was mainly to claw back the evangelicals, IMO.
The evangelicals, his loyal base, was recently fractured from the opinion piece about him. The article below explains his and Pompeo’s ME policy. Of course, there will be collateral consequences, but I think the main, long lasting goal was to reassure the evangelicals Trump was still on their side. This includes the Senate Republicans who will vote on his impeachment.
From the article:
Brought to Jesus’: the evangelical grip on the Trump administration
Fri 11 Jan 2019 02.00 EST Last modified on Fri 18 Jan 2019 16.51 EST
Julian Borger
“In setting out the Trump administration’s Middle East policy, one of the first things Mike Pompeo made clear to his audience in Cairo is that he had come to the region as “as an evangelical Christian”.
“The secretary of state’s primary message in Cairo was that the US was ready once more to embrace conservative Middle Eastern regimes, no matter how repressive, if they made common cause against Iran.”
“We will continue to fight these battles,” the then congressman said at the Summit church in Wichita. “It is a never-ending struggle … until the rapture. Be part of it. Be in the fight.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/11/trump-administration-evangelical-influence-support
= new reply since forum marked as read
Oh forcryingoutloud...
