What Kissinger Knew That Pompeo Does Not
Don’t promise the world if you can’t deliver.
In November 1973, at the end of the Yom Kippur War, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger made his first visit to Cairo, to meet Anwar Sadat, Egypt’s president. America was in the process of withdrawing from Vietnam and Richard Nixon was in the throes of the Watergate crisis that would soon drive him from office. The new secretary of state wanted to conceal the appearance of American weakness with effective Middle East diplomacy. To establish his credibility with Sadat and a broader Arab audience, Kissinger told him, “I will never promise you something I can’t deliver.”
Mike Pompeo would have done well to follow Kissinger’s example
