Iran sanctions ‘toughest ever’
US sanctions against Iran that are set to take effect one day before the midterm elections are tough enough to keep it from pursuing a nuclear weapon, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday.
“No one is going to argue that Secretary Pompeo isn’t hard on Iran and no one is going to argue that President Trump isn’t doing the same,” Pompeo told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.”
Asked on CBS’s “Face the Nation” about the prospect of Tehran restarting its nuclear program, he replied, “We’re confident the Iranians will not make that decision.”
On Fox, Pompeo called the penalties “the toughest sanctions ever put in place on the Islamic Republic of Iran,” and defended the decision to give eight unidentified countries more time to wean themselves off Iranian crude oil.
“They need a little bit more time to get to zero,” Pompeo explained. “And we’re going to provide that to them.”
On CBS, Pompeo confirmed that “European countries will not be permitted to do business with both the United States and with Iran.”
Three conservative Republican senators — Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas — have said the new sanctions don’t go far enough and have drafted legislation that would require the Trump administration to demand that Iran be suspended from the international bank-transfer system.
“The Iranian banks that engage in sanctionable behavior will be sanctioned by the Department of Treasury. Period. Full stop,” Pompeo, who was previously the CIA director, told Fox.
The Trump administration is reimposing a second round of sanctions against Iran on Monday after the president withdrew in May from the Iran nuclear deal, which was brokered by former President Barack Obama.
The 2015 multinational agreement reduced sanctions in exchange for Tehran curbing its nuclear program.
The president was criticized on Friday when he tweeted a “Game of Thrones”-style meme, featuring a photo of himself and the words “Sanctions are Coming,” previewing the Iran penalties.
HBO, which owns the copyright for “Game of Thrones,” wasn’t pleased that Trump had ripped off the “Winter is Coming” catchphrase from its most popular show.