May 22, 2018

Pompeo’s Iran Plan Is a Pipe Dream

The Trump team doesn’t have a post-nuke deal strategy — just a list of demands.

By Julianne Smith

In the wake of President Donald Trump’s announcement this month that the United States would no longer implement the Iran nuclear deal, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday laid out what he called a new strategy to counter Iran’s behavior across the Middle East. His speech, however, did not delineate a strategy so much as a wish list and a long one at that. Pompeo stated 12 demands — or “basic requirements,” as he called them — for Iran.

In addition to doing many of the things that it already had to do under the nuclear agreement that the United States just violated, Iran must do the following, according to Pom: end support for Middle Eastern terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad; respect the sovereignty of the Iraqi government and permit the disarming, demobilization, and reintegration of Shiite militias; end military support for the Houthi militias in Yemen and work toward a peaceful political settlement there; withdraw all forces under Iranian command from Syria; end support for the Taliban and other terrorists in Afghanistan and the region and cease harboring al Qaeda; end the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ support for terrorists and militant partners; and cease its threatening behavior against its neighbors — many of which are U.S. allies. This certainly includes threats to destroy Israel and firing of missiles into Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It also includes its threats to international shipping and destructive cyberattacks.


Read the Full Article at Foreign Policy

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