Pompeo unloads salvo on Iran, lists demands

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday launched a broadside against the Iranian government, vowing to use all U.S. economic and military might to destroy its economy and “crush” its operatives and proxies around the world.

In his first major foreign policy address as secretary of state, Pompeo listed a dozen demands, an agenda encompassing Iran’s foreign ventures as well as its nuclear and missile programs. If Iran agrees to those demands, he said, the United States would lift all sanctions, re-establish diplomatic relations with Tehran and provide it access to advanced technology.

Pompeo said he will work with the Defense Department and regional allies — a group that includes Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states — to “deter Iranian aggression” in the region, including at sea and in cyberspace.

“We will ensure freedom of navigation on the waters in the region,” he said in a speech at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, a conservative think tank whose ideas have been embraced by the Trump administration. “We will work to prevent and counteract any Iranian malign cyberactivity. We will track down Iranian operatives and their Hezbollah proxies operating around the world and crush them. Iran will never again have carte blanche to dominate the Middle East.”

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani promptly rejected Pompeo’s assertion.

“Who are you to decide for Iran and the world?” he was quoted saying by the Iranian Labour News Agency. “The world today does not accept America to decide for the world, as countries are independent,”

Declaring the era of U.S. domination “over,” Rouhani added, “We will continue our path with the support of our nation.”

The suggestion of a further U.S. military role in the region was striking, since President Donald Trump has said he seeks to draw down the U.S. troop presence in Syria, where Iran provides training and arms to militiamen.

Col. Rob Manning, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters the military is looking at potential actions to push back against Iran’s regional military influence as part of a larger U.S. government response. He said the United States would take “all necessary steps” to contain Iran, but declined to provide specifics.

State Department officials said the aim of the speech was to outline a path forward after Trump announced he would withdraw the United States from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and reimpose sanctions.

The Treasury Department already has reimposed sanctions on the head of Iran’s Central Bank and other companies and groups.

Pompeo called for the negotiation of a new deal that would go far beyond the single focus of the 2015 agreement and would have the status of a formal treaty. The 2015 deal concluded under President Barack Obama’s administration dealt only with the nuclear program and was not a treaty but rather a U.N.-endorsed executive agreement between the parties.

Unless such a treaty can be reached, Pompeo warned that Iran would face tough sanctions. But he laid out no strategy for persuading Iran, the other participants in the original deal — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the European Union — or others to open such a negotiation.

“These will end up being the strongest sanctions in history by the time we are complete,” Pompeo said.

“After our sanctions come into full force, it will be battling to keep its economy alive,” he added. “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.”

The new secretary of state, now in his fourth week in office, made clear that the United States is prepared to square off with Europe, using secondary sanctions against companies that do business in Iran.

“We understand our reimposition of sanctions and the coming pressure campaign on the Iranian regime will pose financial and economic difficulties for a number of our friends,” Pompeo said. “But you should know that we will hold those doing prohibited business in Iran to account.”

European leaders have vowed to continue economic engagement with Iran, and Pompeo conceded that many allies see the nuclear deal as essential to their own national security.

“They know where we stand,” Pompeo said.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, speaking to reporters in Argentina, said he believed packaging all of Iran’s concerning behavior into one agreement would be a heavy lift.

“If you try to pull all of those into a giant negotiation, a new jumbo Iran negotiation, a new treaty, I don’t see that being very easy to achieve in anything like a reasonable time scale,” he said. “The idea of a jumbo Iran treaty [is] very difficult.”

European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogerhini said in a statement that Pompeo had not shown how resolving any of Iran’s problematic non-nuclear activities would be easier done outside of the deal, using the acronym for its formal name, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

“Secretary Pompeo’s speech has not demonstrated how walking away from the JCPOA has made or will make the region safer from the threat of nuclear proliferation or how it puts us in a better position to influence Iran’s conduct in areas outside the scope of the JCPOA,” she said. “There is no alternative to the JCPOA.”

Pompeo’s speech drew a warmer response from Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who praised Pompeo’s “wise strategy to eliminate Iran’s nuclear-weapons program once and for all.”

“Every single one of his demands is vital to securing peace in the Middle East and beyond, and the only reason Iran would have for rejecting them would be a malicious determination to continue its campaign of terror,” Cotton wrote in a statement. “The world will be safer when Iran is forced to choose between its nuclear ambitions and its economy, and I urge all countries around the world to heed Secretary Pompeo’s call for cooperation and confront the ayatollahs with that choice.”

‘MALIGN BEHAVIOR’

Pompeo demanded Iran’s complete capitulation on 12 points. Judging by its reaction to similar proposals made previously, Tehran is likely to reject most, if not all.

Among the items on Pompeo’s wish list is a full acknowledgment of Iran’s previous attempts to develop a nuclear weapon. Iran has denied ever wanting to build nuclear arms.

He said a new pact should require that Iran stop enrichment of uranium, which was allowed within strict limitations under the previous deal. Iran would also have to walk away from core pillars of its foreign policy, including its involvement in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Afghanistan, he said.

“This list may seem long to some, but it is simply a reflection of the massive scope of Iranian malign behavior,” Pompeo said. “America did not create this need for changed behavior. Iran did.”

Other demands include stopping ballistic-missile tests and allowing international inspectors access to all sites, including military locations where critics suspect clandestine research. Currently, inspectors must outline the basis for their suspicions.

The one demand that Iran could theoretically assent to is the release of all U.S. citizens imprisoned on a variety of charges, as well as citizens of countries allied with the United States such as France and Britain. At least six Americans are imprisoned or unaccounted for, and they are widely considered to be bargaining chips.

Pompeo stopped short of calling directly for regime change, but he urged Iranians to think of Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif as part of a corrupt, venal and dangerous regime. Previous U.S. officials and the Europeans consider them relative pragmatists who are less dogmatic than the radical theocrats.

“The West often treats President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif as ‘apart’ from the regime’s unwise, terrorist, and malign behaviors,” Pompeo said, speaking directly to the Iranian people. “Yet, Rouhani and Zarif are your elected leaders. Are they not the most responsible for your economic struggles? Are these two not responsible for wasting Iranian lives through the Middle East? It is worth the Iranian people considering.”

He also appealed directly to the Iranian people, suggesting they should reject the clerical government in Tehran, the capital.

“What has the Iranian revolution given to the Iranian people?” Pompeo asked at one point, and then offered an answer: “The hard grip of repression is all that millions of Iranians have ever known.”