‘I Pray That Lindsey’s Wrong’: Pompeo Rejects Graham’s Desire to Re-Invade Afghanistan

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Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday he hoped Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was wrong in predicting the United States would invade Afghanistan again.

“I pray that Lindsey’s wrong,” Pompeo said in an interview on iHeartRadio with Lisa Boothe, according to an advance transcript obtained by Mediaite.

In the interview on The Truth With Lisa Boothe, which is set to release Wednesday, Pompeo quickly pivoted away from the topic, saying he and Graham “had different views” on Afghanistan during Pompeo’s time in the Trump administration and claiming Graham had greater confidence in former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s government.

“He had more confidence in the Ghani government than I ever could muster,” Pompeo said. “[Ghani was] not truly interested in working the political process inside of Afghanistan in a serious way. He was more comfortable working the power corridors of Washington, D.C. than he was the political operations in Kabul and surrounding provinces.”

Graham predicted in a Monday interview the United States would return to Afghanistan as a result of the Taliban reviving it as a place of refuge for al Qaeda.

“Whether you like Trump or not, whether you believe it’s Trump’s fault or Biden’s fault, here’s where we’re at as a world: The Taliban are not reformed, they’re not new,” Graham said. “They have a view of the world out of sync with modern times. They’re going to impose a lifestyle on the Afghan people that I think is going to make us all sick to our stomach.

“But most importantly, they’re going to give safe haven to al Qaeda, [which] has ambitions to drive us out of the Mideast writ large and attack us because of our way of life,” he added. “We will be going back into Afghanistan as we went back into Iraq and Syria.”