From NBC News
by Arsalan Iftikhar | March 14, 2018
The secretary of state is the chief diplomat responsible for guiding the foreign policy for the United States of America, and the face of America in the world — including the Muslim world. And soon, the man holding that job will be a former right-wing Tea Party congressman who once, among other Islamophobic statements and actions, accepted an award from a hate group labeled the “largest anti-Muslim group” in the country by both the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center
In the aftermath of the firing of now-former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Donald Trump wasted no time in naming CIA director Mike Pompeo as Tillerson’s replacement. But before his time at the CIA, Mike Pompeo was a no-name Tea Party congressman from Kansas who positioned himself as a right-wing uber-hawk, particularly in relation to foreign policy toward the Muslim world.
While he was in Congress, for instance, Mike Pompeo once told a church crowd that the “threat to America” was caused by “people who deeply believe that Islam is the way.”
“They abhor Christians,” Pompeo further told tell the church audience and “will continue to press against us until we make sure that we pray and stand and fight and make sure that we know that Jesus Christ is our savior is truly the only solution for our world.”
And, according to The Bridge Initiative at Georgetown University(where I serve as a senior fellow), Mike Pompeo once had the audacity to claim that all Muslims were “potentially complicit” in acts of terrorism collectively.
Mike Pompeo also tried to label the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization: He co-sponsored the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act more than once, trying to force the U.S. State Department to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a “foreign terrorist organization.” The Washington Post reported that previous presidential administrations (both Democrat and Republican) have not viewed the Muslim Brotherhood as a “terrorist” organization and that any such legislation would have “a far-reaching [negative] impact on American Muslims at a time when Muslim community leaders say the religious minority is facing the worst harassment it has seen since the aftermath of 9/11.”
