Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

Donate

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Email
  • RSS
  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2023 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Foreign Policy

Pompeo Pledges continuing US Cooperation with Israel in Syria v. Iran

Middle East Monitor 01/02/2019

Tweet
Share207
Reddit15
Email
222 Shares

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday that the United States would continue to cooperate with Israel over Syria and in countering Iran in the Middle East, even as President Donald Trump plans to withdraw US troops from Syria.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said as he met with Pompeo in the Brazilian capital that he planned to discuss how to intensify intelligence and operations cooperation in Syria and elsewhere to block Iranian “aggression.”

In his first public comments on Trump’s decision, Pompeo said it “in no way changes anything that this administration is working on alongside Israel.”

“The counter-ISIS campaign continues, our efforts to counter Iranian aggression continue and our commitment to Middle East stability and the protection of Israel continues in the same way it did before that decision was made,” he said.

Trump announced last month that he planned to withdraw US troops from Syria, declaring that they had succeeded in their mission to defeat Islamic State and were no longer needed in the country.

In making the announcement, Trump ignored the advice of top national security aides and did so without consulting lawmakers or US allies participating in anti-Islamic State operations. The decision prompted Jim Mattis to resign as defense secretary.

“We have a lot to discuss,” said Netanyahu, who like Pompeo was in the Brazilian capital for the inauguration of Jair Bolsonaro as Brazil’s new president.

“We’re going to be discussing our, the intense cooperation between Israel and the United States which will also deal with the questions following the decision, the American decision, on Syria and how to intensify even further our intelligence and operational cooperation in Syria and elsewhere to block Iranian aggression in the Middle East.”

Netanyahu said Israel was very appreciative of the “strong … unequivocal support” Pompeo gave Israel’s “efforts at self defense against Syria” in the past few days.

Embed from Getty Images

State Department spokesman Robert Palladino said Pompeo and Netanyahu “discussed the unacceptable threat that regional aggression and provocation by Iran and its agents poses to Israeli and regional security” and Pompeo reiterated the US commitment to Israel’s security and right to self-defense.

Netanyahu said last month after Trump’s announcement that Israel would escalate its fight against Iranian-aligned forces in Syria after the withdrawal of US troops.

Israel sees the spread of Iran’s influence in the Middle East as a growing threat, and has carried out scores of air strikes in civil war-torn Syria against suspected military deployments and arms deliveries by Iranian forces supporting Damascus.

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Via Middle East Monitor

—-

Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

Netanyahu meets Pompeo ahead of Brazil inauguration

Filed Under: Foreign Policy, Israel, Syria

About the Author

Middle East Monitor is a not-for-profit press monitoring organization, founded on 1 July 2009, and based in London. Journalists who have written for it include Amelia Smith, Diana Alghoul, Ben White, Jehan Alfarra and Jessica Purkiss. The editorial line straddles the British left and the British Muslim religious Right.

Primary Sidebar

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter and have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.

Twitter

Follow Juan Cole @jricole or Informed Comment @infcomment on Twitter

Facebook



Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2023 All Rights Reserved

Posting....