Telling the conservative Heritage Foundation today in Washington that the Trump administration will impose the most draconic sanctions against Iran ever applied, 54-year-old Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated the White House’s new policy. Canceling May 8 the U.S. participation in former President Barack Obama’s July 15, 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action AKA “the Iranian Nuke Deal, 71-year-old President Donald Trump rocked the global order. While opposed by the five other signatories on the agreement, including the U.K., France, Russia, China and Germany, Trump defended U.S. national security. With Iran’s Yemen proxies firing missiles at Saudi Arabia, running amuck in Syria and now threatening to incinerate Israel, the White House had to do something. Trump took exception to U.S. and European appeasers on Iran, believing that “some agreement was better than no agreement.”
Since Obama inked the deal in 2015, handing Iran billions in sanctions relief, the Mullah regime has been emboldened in its proxy war in Yemen, now threatening Saudi Arabia. Saudi’s 33-uyear-old Defense Secretary, Crown Prinice Mohammed bin Salman, wholeheartedly backed Trump ending U.S. involvement in the Iranian Nuke Deal. Let there be no mistake, the July 15, 2015 deal, culminating two years of erratic negotiations between former Secretary of State John Kerry and Iran’s 56-year-old U.S.-educated Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, was worse than worthless. Supposedly suspending Iran’s military grade enrichment program for 10 years, the deal failed to provide any real verification mechanism. Iran refused to allow U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] inspectors to examine military sites where weapons grade activity might go on.
Iran makes a big deal over IAEA inspectors saying they were in compliance but only at cherry-picked sites made available for testing. All other military sites were not available to IAEA inspectors. Unlike the U.S. or foreign press, Trump believes in linkage, knowing that the so-called Iranian Nuke Deal must do more than only restrict Iran’s weapons grade uranium enrichment activity. Iran threw a fit when Trump backed out of Obama’s deal May 8. Yet the international community must admit that the deal was not a multilateral negotiation. Only the U.S. and Iran participated in the negotiations, leaving the five other signatories in name only. Trump recognized that none of the other signatories cared about the harm to U.S. national security. Trump rejected the U.N. mantra that “some deal was better than no deal.” Trump recognized that no deal was better for the U.S.
In announcing draconic new sanctions, Pompeo wants Iran to cease-and-desist from arming terrorist groups around the Middle East, including Yemen’s Houthi rebels, Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia, Gaza’s Hamas militants, Taliban rebels in Afghanistan, Iranian Republican Guards Company’s Qud’s Force, now threatening Israel in Syria. Before Trump ended the Iranian Nuke Deal, Iran didn’t think twice about supplying arms-and-cash to Hezbollah’s and Hamas’s militants to fight Israel from the North and South. It’s difficult for the U.S. to understand the U.N.’s myopic approach to Iran, backing an agreement that gave the Islamic Republic a blank check to sponsor terrorism around the Middle East. Ending its military grade enrichment program was only one part of the Iranian Nuke Deal. Leaving Iran unbridled to fund terror operations around the Middle Easter hurt the U.S. and its allies.
Speaking to the Heritage Foundation today, Pompeo wants Iran to know there are consequences to its state-sponsoring of terror operations. “All principal components of our sanctions regime,” would be re-implemented said Pompeo, including sanctions any nation buying petroleum from the Islamic Republic. “As President Trump said two weeks ago, he is ready, willing and able, to negotiate a new deal. But the deal is not the objective. Our goal is to protect the American people,” said Pompeo, putting Tehran on notice that it’s going to be difficult to keep the JCPA in tact with European allies paying a price for doing business with Iran. Europeans fear Iran resuming military grade enrichment activities, something they’ve denied from Day 1. Iran insists it has no interest in building and A-bomb but threatens to ramp up its military grade program should the U.S. apply new sanctions.
No P5+1 power, including the U.K., France, Russian China and Germany, has vested interest in the JCPA other than the U.S. Negotiated by Kerry and Zarif over two years, the deal failed to provide real verification, with Iran refusing the IAEA access to sensitive military sites. Now that Pompeo’s announcing new sanctions, the U.S. and foreign press should recognize that sanctions are the only way Iran would comply with the spirit of the deal, regardless on its alleged compliance with IAEA inspectors. “The leaders in Tehran will have no doubt about our seriousness,” said Pompeo, announcing the ‘strongest sanctions in history by the time we are done.” European, Russian and Chinese leaders want to know Trump’s Plan B. Re-imposing draconic sanctions is Trump’s way to get Iran to think twice before arming radicals to fire missiles at Saudi Arabia or sponsoring more terror in the Middle East.
