Secretary of state for the times

Using Twitter may not have been the best or kindest way to announce it, but Donald Trump had good reason to replace Rex Tillerson as US secretary of state. Ahead of two of the most crucial events of the Trump presidency so far — the summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and the requirement to recertify Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, which he loathes — Mr Trump needs a secretary of state firmly in tune with his world view and the conduct of foreign policy.

Mr Tillerson was not that person; the hawkish CIA director Mike Pompeo, a West Point graduate and former congressman who will move to the State Department, is likely to be such a person. And, given the close relationship Mr Trump and Mr Pompeo have developed during the daily briefings the CIA director delivers at the White House, the impact on US foreign policy could be significant.

Mr Tillerson was at odds with too many of the administration’s policies to enable him to be an effective player in the mould of Henry Kissinger or James Baker. Beginning with his disagreement over Mr Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, Mr Tillerson contradicted the President time and again, most crucially on voiding the flawed Iran deal as well as the decision to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The extent to which Mr Tillerson was out of the White House loop was starkly demonstrated when, on a recent tour of Africa, he declared negotiations with the North Korean regime were a long way off, as Mr Trump was tweeting that a summit meeting had been agreed. Mr Tillerson’s reported reference to the President as a “moron” was hardly a good career move.

With the Western-led, rules-based international order and democratic nations facing their biggest challenge since the Cold War, both from Vladimir Putin and from the profound changes in China, strong US leadership and foreign policy coherence is imperative. Mr Pompeo, as CIA director, has shown a clear-eyed view of the threat the Western world faces. His outlook makes him a good choice to invigorate global US leadership.

Like Mr Trump (but not Mr Tillerson), Mr Pompeo believes the Iran deal is “terrible” and must be renegotiated. He will need to ensure that Mr Trump, ever anxious to do a deal, is not tempted into making damaging concessions to Kim.

Mr Pompeo also must persuade the President to do much more to push back against Mr Putin’s increasing militancy and the Russian leader’s dangerous quest to rebuild the old Soviet Union.

Such tasks will not be easy. Mr Trump’s foreign policy and the interests of the free world were ill-served by Mr Tillerson’s tentative approach. That should be overcome with Mr Pompeo at the State Department and the elevation of his highly accomplished deputy at the CIA, Gina Haspel, as the agency’s new director.

The challenges are immediate on North Korea and the Iran deal. It is also urgent that the administration mount a more forceful response to Mr Putin’s aggression, exemplified by the attempted assassination of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Britain.

As the world confronts a dangerous set of circumstances, Mr Pompeo has a critical role to play at Mr Trump’s side in formulating strong and coherent global leadership.