Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love

Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love is a memoir by former American Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. It was published on January 24, 2023 by Broadside Books. The memoir devotes a significant portion to US-Saudi relations and defends the need for close ties with Riyadh.

Contents
Pompeo claimed that the media was trying to "fracture" Washington’s ties with Saudi Arabia. He connects this to Mohammed bin Salman: "Much of this had to do with Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and the heir to the Saudi throne". "The progressive Left hates MBS, in spite of the fact that he is leading the greatest cultural reform in the Kingdom’s history."

In the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, Pompeo’s sympathies lie with the Saudi ruler. He contends that Khashoggi was not a "journalist" (he puts the word in quotes) but a political activist. The killing sparked outrage in multiple countries.

Pompeo dedicated one chapter to the execution of the planning and operation to kill Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. He wrote that he had raised the proposal to kill Soleimani to President Donald Trump.

He praised Benjamin Netanyahu and Volodymyr Zelenskiy. He wrote, "I'm troubled by the evil that has befallen his country," of Ukraine, a year into the 2022 Russian invasion. He says he is "encouraged" that Zelenskiy, had evolved from a comedian "into a kind of General Patton".

He once lauded Vladimir Putin as "smart"; praised Russia's war strategy as "wonderful" and "genius"; derided NATO as "dumb"; and labeled Joe Biden as "weak". Pompeo takes Pope Francis and the Catholic church to task over their relationship with China, and derides both the reformist Pope John XXIII and liberation theology movement of the 1970s.

He refers to "mayhem at the Capitol" on 6 January 2021 and targeted the "left" for looking to exploit the day’s events.