Pompeo reaffirms tough US policy on Iran

WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan 24) - Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reaffirmed on Tuesday, his remarks from the day before in which he outlined a tough new policy toward Iran.

In particular, Pompeo addressed the criticism that his demands were “fantasy” and “can’t happen.”

But they “are really fairly simple,” Pompeo told journalists. “It’s not a fantasy to imagine the Iranians making a decision not to fire missiles into another nation” (i.e. Saudi Arabia.) And “it’s not a fantasy to ask them to cease engaging in terror.”

He was merely asking that Iran “behave like a normal nation.”

Pompeo described the threat from Iran as a “global challenge,” a “shared threat across the world,” which includes “Quds Force assassinations in European countries.”

He also asserted that what the US asked of Iran was “a pretty straightforward set of requirements” that we would expect from “any country in the world.”

“We wouldn’t tolerate another nation behaving with terrorist activity by putting proxy forces that threaten Americans in Iraq,” Pompeo said, giving one such example.

Ryan Crocker, US ambassador to Iraq during the surge, warned last month,“I keep thinking of the Marines in Lebanon,” who were attacked in October 1983 in a suicide bombing, organized by Iran and Syria.

They suffered 241 fatalities—the Marines’ worst single death toll since World War II in a single day.

Others, including Jennifer Cafarella, Director of Intelligence Planning, at the Institute for the Study of War, and Michael Pregent, an Iraq expert at the Hudson Institute, have echoed Crocker’s concern.

Pompeo is the first senior US official to highlight such a danger from the Iranian-backed militias in Iraq.

During the State Department briefing that followed the Secretary’s remarks, Kurdistan 24 noted that, on Monday, Pompeo had called on Iran to “respect” Iraq’s sovereignty and “permit the disarming, demobilization and reintegration of Shia militias.”

Asked if the US would work with Baghdad to achieve that goal, Spokesperson Heather Nauert responded, “We respect Iraq’s sovereignty, and we partner with the Iraqi government.”

It will not be an easy task, but Nauert affirmed the US would pursue it, regardless of the composition of Iraq’s next government.

“We will work with whomever the Iraqi government and the people of Iraq” chose, she said. “We’ve had a longstanding, good relationship with the government of Iraq.”

Despite multiple complaints of irregularities, even widespread fraud, in the vote count, the Independent High Election Commission (IHEC) has announced the election results.

Asked for the US view, Nauert responded that IHEC was still investigating complaints about the elections, and the US supported its work.

Nauert flatly denied that the new US policy aimed to change the Iranian regime, although Pompeo’s comments lent themselves to that interpretation.

For example, on Tuesday, Pompeo concluded his remarks, “I have every reason to think that the Iranian people” also want their country to abide by the international norms that we have laid out.

“This is a rich country with a deep civilization and a wonderful history,” Pompeo said, and “I’m convinced that the people of Iran, when they can see a path forward which will lead their country to stop behaving” as a rogue regime “will choose that path.”