Erica Fein / Win Without War & CBS Evening News – 2018-08-26 00:25:39
Pompeo Reportedly Preparing
Trump’s Illegal Plot to Attack Iran
Erica Fein / Win Without War
WASHINGTON (August 25, 2018) — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is building Trump’s Iran regime change army .
Pompeo’s newly-appointed “Iran Action Group” sounds like bureaucracy as usual. In reality, it’s anything but. Pompeo just appointed a bunch of people to formal positions in the US government whose job is regime change in Iran.
And what’s even scarier? They’re not the only ones. This new agency is just one small piece of a large and powerful Iran-regime-change industry within US government, media, and think tanks.
Win Without War has been taking on this industry for years. We’ve got the expertise, stubbornness, and grassroots power to expose the truth about Pompeo’s new regime change buddies and neutralize the lies they’re pumping out to build the case for war with Iran. But we need your help to foil their plans before they can drag us into a devastating war with Iran.
Trump’s foreign policy on Iran is paving a clear path from killing the Iran Deal to sparking a war with Iran. And the “Iran Action Group” — better named Iran War Group — is only offering more sanctions that isolate the US economically and politically, without reducing Iran’s destructive militarist presence in the region one bit.
Exactly 65 years ago, the United States and the United Kingdom overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran after he nationalized the Iranian oil industry away from British control.
It’s no accident that Pompeo announced his new regime change buddies on the very anniversary of that coup d’etat. The United States’ reckless determination to destabilize Iran was disastrous then, and it’s disastrous now.
There is a clear alternative to war with Iran: Diplomacy. That’s why Win Without War will continue stopping the colossal industry dedicated to Iranian regime change.
We’ll expose Iran-hawk faux-experts in the media, we’ll pressure Congress to speak out against sanctions, and we’ll hold public events advocating for non-military solutions for US-Iran relations. We are using every tactic at our disposal to stop the powerful Iran War Group before Trump’s next deadline to re-impose sanctions this fall. And we need your support.
Thank you for working for peace,
Erica, Ben, Cassandra, and the Win Without War team
Mike Pompeo Forms “Iran Action Group”
For Post-nuclear Deal Policy
CBS Evening News
(August 16, 2018) — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is forming a dedicated group to coordinate and run US policy toward Iran as the Trump administration moves ahead with efforts to force changes in the Islamic Republic’s behavior after withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal.
Pompeo announced the creation of the Iran Action Group on Thursday, telling reporters that the initiative would be “directing, reviewing and coordinating all aspects of the State Department’s Iran-related activity.”
The group will be headed by Brian Hook, who is currently the State Department’s director of policy planning, and will report directly to Pomepo. Hook led the Trump administration’s ultimately unsuccessful attempt to negotiate changes to the nuclear deal with European allies before the president decided in May to pull out of the accord.
“Our hope is that one day soon we can reach an agreement with Iran but we must see major changes in the regime both inside and outside of its borders,” said Pompeo on Thursday. He added, “The Iranian people and the world are demanding that Iran finally act like a normal nation.”
He said that State is committed to a “whole of government effort to change the Iranian regime behavior.”
Hook said, based off of Pompeo’s extensive list of actions Iran must take in order to enter into a new deal with the US, “our new strategy addresses all manifestation of the Iranian threat and the new Iran Action Group will be focused on implementing that strategy.” He said that the group will be comprised of an “elite team” of foreign affairs professionals at State and across the administration.
The group will “play a critical role in leading our efforts within the Department and executing the president’s Iran strategy.”
Since withdrawing, the administration has re-imposed sanctions that were eased under the deal and has steadily ramped up pressure on Iran to try to get it to stop what it describes as “malign activities” in the region.
In addition to its nuclear and missile programs, the administration has repeatedly criticized Iran for supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad, Shiite rebels in Yemen and anti-Israel groups. It has also in recent weeks stepped up criticism of Iran’s human rights record and is working with other nations to curb their imports of Iranian oil.
CBS News‘ Kylie Atwood reports that the State Department currently faces a November 4th deadline when sanctions will be reimposed on those who are importing Iranian oil. The Department has been working around the clock to coordinate with countries to cutoff their supply.
US officials have also been in talks with Saudi Arabia to produce more oil to meet the global demand. To keep countries from turning away, this month Iran announced it would slash its oil prices for all markets, specifically targeting Asian markets, starting in September. Earlier this month Saudi also cut prices for exports everywhere but the United States.
The US has also told businesses and governments in Europe that they may also be subject to penalties if they violate, ignore or attempt to subvert the re-imposed US sanctions.
The Trump administration’s exit from the Iran deal is also creating internal divisions within Iran’s leadership. On Monday, Iran’s supreme leader rejected the possibility of talks with President Trump. “THERE WILL BE NO WAR, NOR WILL WE NEGOTIATE WITH THE US,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tweeted.
He also said Iran negotiations – like President Rouhani – crossed red lines in their negotiations on the Iran Deal. “The Islamic Republic can negotiate with America whenever it achieves the power to resist America’s pressure and blackmail,” the Ayatollah said. “Today this is not the case.”
When asked about the Supreme leader and Rouhani divide making it hard for the US to communicate at all with the Iranians, Hook brushed it off as something that they have to handle internally. He made no comment on the remarks earlier this summer from Mr. Trump indicating he would meet with Iranian leaders without preconditions
Pompeo and other officials have denied that the administration is seeking to foment regime change in Iran and maintain they only want to see the government change course. Pompeo created a similar group dedicated to working on North Korea policy while he was director of the CIA.
Hook is expected to be replaced as policy planning chief by Kiron Skinner, a foreign policy academic and adviser to several Republican presidential candidates who served on Mr. Trump’s national security transition team and very briefly at the State Department after Trump took office, according to the officials who were not authorized to publicly discuss personnel matters and spoke on condition of anonymity.
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