Pompeo, Who Led Trump’s Mission at State Dept., Leaves With a Dubious Legacy

Spurned by many foreign allies, ridiculed by adversaries, disliked by a significant number of his own diplomats and trying to preserve his political future, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week offered an insight into his legacy as a commander of the Trump administration’s scorched-earth foreign policy by citing a seminal moment in his personal history.

In 1983, when Mr. Pompeo was a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point, an Iranian-linked militia bombed the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 241 American troops. By his own telling — “My life wouldn’t be the same after that,” Mr. Pompeo said on Tuesday, in his last public speech in office — it was a powerful indoctrination for a young soldier in training to protect the United States from deadly enemies.

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