Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo aired skepticism about the ongoing Iran-U.S. nuclear deal talks and outlined what, in his view, a potential agreement with the Islamic republic should look like.
“The thousands of victims of Iran’s terror machine know all too well that ‘living happily without death’ is impossible under the current regime. And a fake deal focused solely on nuclear enrichment will result in far less happiness and more death, not the reverse—not only for the Iranian people but for human beings all across the world,” Pompeo wrote in an op-ed for The Free Press published on Friday.
Pompeo, a longtime Iran hawk, said the Trump administration is negotiating a deal while Iran is in its “weakest strategic point in decades” and the president’s “hand could not be stronger.”
Therefore, an agreement that permits Iran to continue with its current nuclear rate of development is “not a deal worth making,” according to the former CIA director.
Instead, similarly to what he shared in 2018, Pompeo argued a new accord with Tehran should be based on three main conditions — Iran destroying all uranium enrichment sites, stop providing political, military and financial support to its proxies and striking a peace deal with its Gulf Arab neighbors, along with doing away with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
On Saturday, the Trump administration met for talks in Rome about Iran’s nuclear program. The meetings were mediated by Omani officials.
Since returning to the White, Trump has said he wants to prioritize diplomatic engagement with Iran over military action against Tehran. But the president warned that if the talks are not fruitful, a military attack on Iran is on the table. Pompeo said he agrees with Trump’s alternative option.
“Iran’s closest allies—the Chinese Communist Party and Vladimir Putin—are not likely to come to Iran’s aid following such an attack, reducing risk still further. That Iran might use all of its proxies to respond to such an attack is indeed a risk,” Pompeo wrote. “But what’s more likely is that so long as the strikes only target military and nuclear sites, Ayatollah Khamenei will not risk escalation.”
The former Trump officials slammed the more isolationist wing of the GOP and those still supportive of the Obama-negotiated Iran deal, from which Trump pulled out of in 2018, claiming they are only for two options: “war or a deal.”
“This is propaganda. It is a false choice propagated by those who would prefer to coddle the regime in Tehran and cut a deal that will ensure that Iran obtains a full-on nuclear weapons program over time. Ironically, this outcome makes war more, not less, likely,” Pompeo said.
The former CIA director wrote that there are more options at the U.S.’s disposal.
He wrote that the current administration could turn up the pressure and deter Iran by “denying it the resources it needs to foment terror, rebuild the Shia Crescent, and obtain weapons of mass destruction.”
“Our chokehold on the Iranian regime’s wealth in the first Trump term was effective. Iran was all but broke after less than two years of maximum pressure,” he said. “The Ayatollah would have faced a massive resource shortfall had President Biden and his team not provided succor to the Iranian regime before Trump’s second term.”