Mike Pompeo raises the bar for a deal with Iran

Behnam Ben Taleblu

Senior Fellow

An excerpt from the op-ed follows:

“Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went big — very big — in his speech at the Heritage Foundation Monday. Pompeo’s remarks were the first major statement of U.S. policy towards Iran following the U.S. withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal on May 8. Whereas the JCPOA attempted to deal with the Iranian nuclear threat in isolation, Pompeo demanded nothing less than a fundamental transformation of the Islamic Republic’s behavior. This bold move raises the bar very high for any future deal with Iran.

In order to bring about big changes in Iranian behavior, the administration is going all in on a strategy of financial warfare, coupled with the promise to “crush” “Iranian operatives and their Hezbollah proxies.”

“Sanctions are going back in full effect and new ones are coming,” Pompeo said. The sanctions goal is to inflict enough pain on the regime in Tehran that it will abandon its policy of bankrolling foreign wars and terrorist organizations, both of which are a forte of the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Implicit in Pompeo’s remarks was a warning to allies who may still want to do business with Tehran: In order to avoid a collision with Washington over sanctions enforcement, European and Asian financial institutions and businesses must now make sharp adjustments and close up shop in Iran during the “wind-down” period provided for by the Treasury Department.”

Read the full piece from The Hill here.

Behnam Ben Taleblu is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).

Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD. FDD is a Washington-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Issues:

Iran Iran Sanctions

May 21, 2018 | The Hill

Mike Pompeo raises the bar for a deal with Iran

Behnam Ben Taleblu

Issues: