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May 22, 2018

A lot of hot air and not much else...

Pompeo threatens Iran with 'strongest sanctions in history'

By LOUIS NELSON

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday threatened to impose “the strongest sanctions in history” on Iran unless it takes dramatic steps, including permanently abandoning its nuclear program, halting missile tests and withdrawing military forces from Syria.

Critics quickly called the maximalist demands unrealistic and warned that they put the U.S. on dangerous new collision course with Tehran — as well as with European allies who oppose President Donald Trump's crackdown on Iran and face potential U.S. sanctions from continuing to do business with the country.

But supporters said the speech outlined a robust approach to dealing with Tehran, following the Trump administration's decision to withdraw from an international deal in which Iran agreed to curb its nuclear weapons program in exchange for economic sanctions relief.

Pompeo stopped just short of issuing a military threat against Iran and again denounced the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as a misguided attempt to prompt the Iranian government into better behavior on the regional and world stage.

“The sting of sanctions will be painful if the regime does not change its course from the unacceptable and unproductive path it has chosen to one that rejoins the league of nations. These will indeed end up being the strongest sanctions in history when we are complete,” Pompeo said in remarks at the Heritage Foundation.

“Iran will be forced to make a choice: either fight to keep its economy off life support at home or keep squandering precious wealth on fights abroad. It will not have the resources to do both,” he added.

Pompeo laid out a 12-point list of demands, including total access throughout the country for the International Atomic Energy Agency, the release of all Americans held in Iran, an end to funding groups labeled as terrorist organizations by the U.S. and the cessation of other destabilizing activities in the region.

Iran is virtually certain to reject the demands.

Pompeo also offered a warning to the Iranian government against restarting its nuclear program: "I would remind the leadership in Iran what President Trump's said: If they restart their nuclear program, it will mean bigger problems, bigger problems than they’ve ever had before."

The secretary of state’s remarks came weeks after Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, an agreement struck in 2015 between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Germany, intended to block the Iranian government’s path to a nuclear weapon.

Trump has derided the agreement as the “worst deal ever” and complained that it failed to address Iranian aggression throughout the Middle East and funding for groups the U.S. considers terrorist organizations.

Trump ignored pleas by U.S. allies not to exit the deal. But the move was celebrated by other Middle Eastern governments, including Israel and Saudi Arabia, which have called for the kind of Iranian concessions Pompeo outlined on Monday.

The approach Pompeo outlined Monday also earned a warm reception from Mark Dubowitz, who heads the hawkish Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and was an intense critic of the Iran deal who nonetheless advocated against scrapping it.

“Pompeo provided a clear Plan B: Intensify the Iranian regime’s ongoing liquidity and political crisis to force fundamental changes in its behavior across a range of malign activities with the promise of a big diplomatic deal if they do," Dubowitz said in a statement issued through the foundation. "In short: Maximum diplomacy backed by maximum pressure.”

Others saw Pompeo's speech as a troubling step towards a potential conflict. Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian-American Council, issued a lengthy statement of accusing the Trump administration of seeking military conflict with Iran by imposing demands that could lead nowhere else.

"Pompeo's remarks today makes it very clear: Trump has no strategy," he said. "Only a long list of complaints that end with demands that everyone in the policy community knows are non-starters."

Parsi added: "By all accounts, this appears to be a strategy aimed at failing rather than succeeding."

Diplomacy Works, a group founded by Obama-era foreign policy officials that supports the Iran deal, was similarly critical of Pompeo's pitch. The secretary's threats of severe sanctions are undercut by the lack of cooperation from allies, the group said in a statement.

"We will be trying to implement them alone," the organization said, warning that the Iranians would only resent this approach.

"The consequences of this 'strategy' will be to give a new generation of Iranians ample reasons to distrust the United States and provide Iranian leadership with a scapegoat for their corruption and bad economic policies," the organization added.

Pompeo's speech offered little in the way of specific strategies for achieving his goals. He said the U.S. would work with allies to corral Iran — but Great Britain, France and Germany have shown little enthusiasm for negotiating a successor to the 2015 deal. Indeed, within hours of Pompeo's remarks, British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson collectively labeled the U.S. proposals a "jumbo Iran treaty" that he said would be "very, very difficult" to reach.

“I think if you try now to fold all those issues — the ballistic missiles, Iran’s misbehavior, Iran’s disruptive activity in the region and the nuclear question — if you try to fold all those in to a giant negotiation ... I don’t see that being very easy to achieve, in anything like a reasonable timetable," Johnson told The Guardian.

With key U.S. allies in Europe remaining in line behind the Iran nuclear deal, Pompeo said Monday that the Trump administration would look to expand the list of international partners willing to pursue a new, broader deal with the Iranian government.

He ticked off Japan, Australia, South Korea, India and Japan, as well as a long list of regional players sensitive to Iran's desire to grow its regional influence, including Kuwait, Egypt, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

Pompeo also pointed to unfinished denuclearization talks with North Korea as evidence that the Trump administration is sincere in its foreign policy aims. While Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appear headed toward a historic summit in June, Pyongyang has injected some doubt in recent weeks, threatening to pull out of the talks over several perceived slights.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif seemed to move quickly Monday to drive a wedge between the U.S. and the other Iran deal signatories, pledging cooperation with them while slamming the Trump administration's foreign policy approach.

"US diplomacy sham is merely a regression to old habits: imprisoned by delusions & failed policies—dictated by corrupt Special Interest—it repeats the same wrong choices and will thus reap the same ill rewards," he wrote on Twitter. "Iran, meanwhile, is working with partners for post-US JCPOA solutions."

Pompeo did dangle the prospect, in the event that Iran should comply with all of his demands, of a complete end to sanctions as well as the reestablishment of full diplomatic ties with Washington, which were severed in 1980 after Iranian students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Pompeo also offered to grant Iran access to more advanced technology and to reintegrate the country into the worldwide economy.

Iranian people, Pompeo suggested, have grown frustrated with their nation's government, as evidenced by protests that began late last year. The secretary of state also dismissed the distinction he said some in the U.S. drawn between Iran's elected leaders and the unelected religious figures who serve above them, calling on Iranians to hold President Hassan Rouhani and his foreign minister, Javad Zarif, accountable.

"Are these two not responsible for wasting Iranian lives throughout the Middle East?" Pompeo asked. "It's worth the Iranian people considering."

He also issued a plea to Iranian citizens.

“Today, we ask the Iranian people: Is this what you want your country to be known for? For being a co-conspirator with Hezbollah, Hamas, the Taliban, and Al Qaeda?" he said, referencing Middle East groups that the U.s. has deemed terrorist organizations. "The United States believes you deserve better."

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