May 21, 2018 | The Hill
Mike Pompeo raises the bar for a deal with Iran
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.”
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.