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Ex CIA boss Mike Pompeo, 2017 Tehran terror attack suspect has new Iran 'regime change' programme

738 views · Published 23 May 2018 · 5:45 · Indexed 29 October 2026

Channel: Public Enquiry · 2018 · News & Politics

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The new US strategy on Iran is designed to be rejected – here's why

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/us-iran-policy-nuclear-deal-trump-rouhani-weapons-mike-pompeo-a8363486.html

In his speech, Mike Pompeo declared that Iran must withdraw all its forces from Syria, stop supporting its allies in Yemen, halt production of long-range missiles, stop uranium enrichment and agree to inspection of a range of facilities at anytime, anywhere in the country

Kim Sengupta Tuesday 22 May 2018
President Donald Trump has stated that if Iran restarts its nuclear program there will be severe consequences

The Trump administration announced its policy towards Iran on Monday after reneging on the country’s nuclear deal with the international community. There are a dozen demands, amounting, in effect, to a declaration of economic warfare, a demand for Tehran to surrender its defence and foreign policy and the threat to force regime change.

The conditions put forward by the new secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, have no chance of being accepted by Iran. They have pleased Saudi Arabia, which has pledged to buy billions of dollars of weaponry from the US, and Israel, whose backers funded Donald Trump’s election campaign. They have been met with dismay by America’s Western allies who see just how far the transatlantic divide has grown under Trump.

In his first speech as secretary of state, Pompeo declared that Iran must withdraw all its forces from Syria, stop supporting its allies Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen. It must halt production of long-range missiles, stop uranium enrichment allowed under the nuclear agreement, and agree to inspection of a range of facilities at any time, anywhere in the country.

These are the “very basic requirements” said Pompeo, implying other demands will follow. Failure by Tehran to comply, he threatened, will result in “the strongest sanctions in history” which wound “crush” Iran’s government if it does not change its ways. Iran’s people, he said, need to get rid of their leaders.

US President Donald Trump displays a presidential memorandum after announcing his intent to withdraw from the JCPOA Iran nuclear agreement in the Diplomatic Room at the White House.Reuters

There is, of course, always the possibility with this US administration that the threats will not materialise. It has just pulled out, for the time being at least, from a trade war with China. Trump, after all the tweets of annihilating North Korea, is meeting Kim Jong-un without any pre-conditions.

It could be that Pompeo’s rhetoric could be seen as part of a contest between him and new national security adviser, John Bolton, on hawkishness. The White House could, theoretically, distance itself from Pompeo as it did from Bolton’s demand that Kim Jong-un accept the Libyan option for nuclear disarmament – the one under which Muammar Gaddafi gave up his nuclear programme only to be overthrown a few years later by Nato and US bombing, hunted down and lynched.

But on Iran, Pompeo is keen to pander to Trump’s destructive urges, unlike Rex Tillerson who was fired for trying to restrain them. There are real dangers in the bellicose American approach. The JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), or Iran agreement, was viewed by its signatories – Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China and until Trump, the US – as Plan A to stop proliferation. No one thinks The US administration’s Plan B is going to work....

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