Iranian threat concerns mean that Mike Pompeo’s Diplomatic Security Service protective detail will be indefinitely extended after the Trump administration leaves office on Jan. 20.
As part of the omnibus spending bill passed on Monday, Congress appropriated up to $15 million for the protection. The legislation notes that the protection is authorized for former senior State Department officials that “the Secretary of State in consultation with the Director of National Intelligence, determines … face a serious and credible threat from a foreign power.” Such protection extends for “an initial period of not more than 180 days, which may be extended for additional consecutive periods of 60 days.” The behind-the-scenes expectation, however, is that Pompeo’s protective detail will remain in place for a period of years, not months.
The sustained security is informed by intelligence reporting and analysis over Iran’s interest in new retaliation for the U.S. killing of Qassem Soleimani in January 2020. Pompeo has featured personally in this threat reporting, and his protective detail has been repeatedly, and visibly, strengthened in tandem with this concern. Pompeo’s protective detail has been publicly boosted in size, but also in other capabilities. The Diplomatic Security Service has also requested and, generally received, increased foreign security service support during Pompeo’s trips abroad this year.
Again, Soleimani is the key.
As the leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ primary covert action arm, the Quds Force, Soleimani was responsible for orchestrating major plots against U.S. interests. These included the 2007 kidnap and murder of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and a foiled 2011 plot to kill up to 100 Washington, D.C., diners and assassinate the then Saudi Ambassador.
Yet while Iran conducted an immediate retaliatory strike for the Soleimani killing, firing dozens of ballistic missiles into a U.S. military base in Iraq, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has stated (as recently as last week) that the missile response was insufficient alone. Khamenei and the IRGC’s motive for revenge takes on a passionate form, informed as it is by the particular revolutionary-theological fervor of their Khomeinist ideology. Khamenei and the IRGC hard-liner cadre (at least some important elements of it — the IRGC is riven by division) regard Soleimani as an heir to their most revered hero, Husayn ibn Ali, and the United States as an heir to Ali’s hated killer, the Umayyad Caliphate. They thus view Soleimani as a martyr deserving of extreme retribution.
Pompeo’s hawkish Iran policy record makes him stand out as a target. As CIA director, Pompeo authorized significantly escalated operations against Iran and its proxies. While at Langley, Pompeo even wrote to Soleimani, warning him that his threats to U.S. lives would risk his own life. But Iran’s animus toward the former Kansas congressman took on particular emphasis during Pompeo’s tenure as secretary of state. Both Iranian hard-line and more moderate elements perceive Pompeo as the brains behind the Trump administration’s maximum pressure strategy toward them. The U.S. sanctions imposed alongside that strategy have obliterated the Iranian economy, leading Khamenei’s regime to a potentially existential crisis. Tehran’s interest in aggression has been further exacerbated by Khamenei’s concerns of appearing weak as Trump leaves office and Israel’s recent killing of a top IRGC scientist.
There is also a more quietly stated concern that Iran’s risk assessment will shift toward attacking Pompeo after President-elect Joe Biden takes office. Iran witnessed that the Obama administration (and by his inclusion in it, Biden) did not retaliate in the aftermath of the 2011 D.C. bomb plot — a decision that led to tensions with Jim Mattis, then U.S. Central Command’s commanding officer. Iran might gamble a Biden administration would tolerate its greater malfeasance were Tehran to return to the 2015 JCPOA nuclear accord.
Ultimately, however, Pompeo’s post-administration security concerns are based on credible intelligence reporting and analysis. This security complement is justified and will be necessary for the foreseeable future.
