Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo praised President Donald Trump on Wednesday for his decision to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities over the weekend, pushing back on criticism from the isolationist right that the attack would embroil the U.S. in another prolonged conflict in the Middle East. 

Pompeo appeared at the World Affairs Council of New Hampshire, a part of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, for “Building Back American Deterrence and Strength in a Dangerous World.” The former secretary of state said during a moderated conversation with Tim Horgan, WACNH’s executive director, that the U.S. strikes served to prevent war rather than cause it. 

“Make no mistake, President Trump’s decision to act … delivered more security for our friends in Israel and made the world safer. America reasserted its global leadership. We didn’t send the 82nd [bomb squadron] — we sent America,” Pompeo said. 

Pompeo said that he believed the strikes by Israel and the U.S. on Iran’s nuclear facilities had restored deterrence in regard to both Iran and North Korea. “I do know this: [North Korean] Chairman Kim [Jong Un] is sitting a little less comfortably on his throne today,” he said.

Pompeo, who also served as CIA director from 2017-2018, said he rejected accusations from the progressive left and isolationist right that U.S. military engagement in recent decades had largely led to extended wars that failed to achieve any serious national security objectives.

“I’ve been called a neocon warmonger or worse. But for four years [when I was CIA director and secretary of state] we had no wars. It wasn’t because we were peaceniks and isolationists, it was because of our understanding of the things that matter to America,” Pompeo explained.

Pompeo also reaffirmed his belief in continued U.S. support for Ukraine in its war with Russia, arguing that the success of the Ukrainians would ensure the safety of Western nations.

“We have to win,” Pompeo said. “The West needs to win, Ukraine needs to win, Europe needs to win.”

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will teach a course at Columbia University this spring on diplomacy, decision-making and organizational leadership at the school’s Institute of Global Politics, a prominent conservative hire for the embattled Ivy League school.

“The Academy cannot be an ivory tower,” Keren Yarhi-Milo, the dean of the School of International and Public Affairs, told The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the appointment. “We should engage with the world because we learn a lot from engaging with practitioners with differing positions and ideologies who also ultimately can learn from us.”

The announcement comes as Columbia faces ongoing scrutiny from the administration and Congress over antisemitic activity on campus since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and ensuing war between Israel and Hamas, and amid long-running accusations from some conservatives that elite institutions are silencing and sidelining conservative voices.

“I suspect that [Columbia’s] outreach was intentional in the sense that they were seeking to bring onto campus … someone with a view that is very different than most of the faculty on their staff,” Pompeo told the Journal.

Pompeo said that he seeks to “teach the next generation about the greatness of our nation” and that he wants to hold “fair, reasoned and fact-based discourse.”

Prior to serving as President Donald Trump’s second secretary of state, Pompeo led the Central Intelligence Agency and served as a member of Congress. He took a hard-nosed approach to the Iranian regime as secretary of state and was a vocal supporter of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

Pompeo fell out of favor with Trump after he didn’t endorse the president’s false claims that the 2020 election was rigged and condemned the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Last month, Trump revoked Pompeo’s security detail that had been put in place to protect him from assassination attempts by the Iranian government.