MESOPOTAMIA NEWS “PRETTY NEWS TODAY” : VERY GOOD ! THANKS POMPEO !

EAST KURDISTAN (IRAN) –  Pompeo: US to put ‘unprecedented financial pressure’ on Iran

By Rudaw – 21 May 2018 –  ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, has unveiled the next steps in US policy toward Iran since Washington withdrew from the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal earlier in May.

“We will apply unprecedented financial pressure on the Iranian regime. The leaders in Tehran will have no doubt about our seriousness,” said Pompeo in his first major foreign policy speech.Speaking at the Heritage Foundation in Washington on Monday, the former CIA chief said the US will act to curtail Iran’s influence across the Middle East, in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. “Iran advanced its march across the Middle East during the JCPOA. Qasem Soleimani (senior military officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) has been playing with house money that has become blood money,” said Pompeo.

“Wealth created by the West has fuelled his campaigns. Strategically, the Obama administration made a bet that the deal would spur Iran to stop its rogue state actions and conform to international norms. That bet was a loser with massive repercussions for all of the people living in the Middle East.”

“Iran will never again have carte blanche to dominate the Middle East,” he said.European firms who continue to pursue “prohibited business” with Iran will be held “to account,” he added.

The newly appointed secretary of state detailed 12 “basic requirements” for any new deal with Iran. Iran must “stop enrichment” of uranium and never preprocess plutonium, he said. It must also allow nuclear “unqualified access to all sites throughout the country.”Iran must “release all US citizens,” end support for Houthi rebels in Yemen, “withdraw all forces” from Syria, and stop threatening Israel, he added.Pompeo used his speech to slam the previous administration’s Iran policy.

“(US) President Trump withdrew from the deal for a simple reason – it failed to guarantee the safety of the American people from the risk created by the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he said. “No more, no more wealth creation for Iranian kleptocrats, no more acceptance of missiles landing in Riyadh and the Golan Heights, no more cost free expansions of Iranian power, no more. The JCPOA put the world at risk because of its failed flaws.” www.mesop.de