Pompeo vows to expel 'every last Iranian boot' from SyriaCairo - US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo vowed yesterday the United States and its allies would chase all Iranian troops from Syria, and urged Middle East nations to forge a common stand against Tehran. America "will use diplomacy and work with our partners to expel every last Iranian boot" from Syria and bolster efforts "to bring peace and stability to the long-suffering Syrian people," he added. Pompeo stressed the pullout would go ahead, despite comments in recent weeks appearing to walk back Trump's decision, but that the US would remain engaged. And parroting Obama's words in his landmark 2009 speech in Cairo, Pompeo vowed that now was really "a new beginning" in ties between the US and the Middle East. - 'Middle East even messier' -"By most accounts, Trump's Middle East policy has made a messy Middle East even messier," Aaron David Miller, a former US diplomat and now an analyst at the Wilson Center, said on Twitter.

Source: Philippine Star January 10, 2019 16:20 UTC