Monday 21 May 2018

Pompeo's great challenge to Tehran

The question is: will Tehran bow to the tough message put out by Mike Pompeo, the big man US secretary of state, and agree to full compliance with his 12 demands which include NO return to nuclear weapon development, no more murderous mischief in the Middle East, no more involvement in Syria and Yemen etc? If they don't comply which would mean basically reversing the whole foreign policy and strategic objectives they have followed since the Iranian revolution, they will face the toughest sanctions "in history" aimed at destroying their economy. I fear Tehran will be so angry that they will never comply but will use every devious attempt to win support from Europe and others to denounce and undermine Washington's efforts to bring Iran to its knees. Why would Tehran comply with such surrender terms? Of course it would be terrific if the Pompeo commandments actually persuaded Tehran to suddenly become a friendly, happy and Western-loving government, no longer interested in building malign influence in the Middle East and content for Israel to exist. But does Pompeo really believe that his ultimatums will achieve the result he and Trump want? Maybe he does. Maybe he is convinced that this new era of threatening Armaegeddon will work, even with a regime such as Iran. But the only way Tehran will change is if there is another revolution in Iran and the younger generation rise up to overthrow the ayatollahs. Pompeo understands this because his speech was directed at the Iranian people, inviting them to bring change to their country. But the Iranian Revolutionary Guard are firmly in control, and it is hard to imagine the people rising up against them. So Pompeo's list of demands are likely to provoke anger and hatred of America. That bodes ill for the future. But having withdrawn the US from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, it was inevitable that Trump would move to the next stage and throw down the gauntlet to Iran, just as he did with North Korea. Pompeo indicated that Trump would be prepared to resort to other methods if Iran rushed to developing nuclear weapons and continued to wage wars in Yemen and Syria. The military option? With Trump, it's all or nothing, and Pompeo is a willing pupil.

No comments:

Post a Comment