Pompeo to Lay Out Plans For US-Led Anti-Iranian Regime Coalition

By Patrick Goodenough | May 18, 2018 | 5:11 AM EDT

(CNSNews.com) – In his first foreign policy speech since assuming his new post, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will on Monday outline the administration’s plans to build a post-nuclear-deal coalition against the regime in Tehran. “The U.S. will be working hard to put together a coalition, not unlike the D-ISIS coalition,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told a briefing Thursday. She was referring to the coalition established in 2014 to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL), and comprising 71 countries and four institutions. Nauert said the aim would be to “bring together a lot of countries from around the world with the specific goal of looking at the Iranian regime

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meets with his British counterpart, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, at the State Department on May 7, 2018. (Photo: State Department)
(CNSNews.com) – In his first foreign policy speech since assuming his new post, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will on Monday outline the administration’s plans to build a post-nuclear-deal coalition against the regime in Tehran.

“The U.S. will be working hard to put together a coalition, not unlike the D-ISIS coalition,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told a briefing Thursday. She was referring to the coalition established in 2014 to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL), and comprising 71 countries and four institutions.

Nauert said the aim would be to “bring together a lot of countries from around the world with the specific goal of looking at the Iranian regime through a more realistic lens.”

Rather than view the regime purely through the lens of the nuclear deal, the administration wants the coalition to confront “all of its destabilizing activities.”

When President Trump withdrew this month from the agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), administration officials indicated that the U.S. wants to build a broad coalition to tackle Iran’s “malign activities,” including ballistic missiles and support for terrorism.

Those issues were deliberately left off the table during the negotiations that produced the JCPOA in 2015. At Iran’s insistence, and with Moscow’s support, the Obama administration and its P5+1 negotiating partner agreed to set them aside, for fear of jeopardizing chances for a deal on its nuclear programs.

Nauert outlined preliminary steps taken by the department in the wake of the JCPOA withdrawal.

Some 200 foreign ambassadors were hosted by the State Department earlier this week, she said, and “several of our assistant secretaries had a chance to talk with them about our real and serious and grave concerns about Iran’s destabilizing activity.”

Pompeo has also discussed those issues with his counterparts from the three European members of the P5+1 group – Britain, France and Germany.

Nauert stressed that the initiative would not be an “anti-Iran” coalition – since the U.S. “stand[s] firmly behind the people of Iran” – but one that targets the regime and its “bad actions.”

Asked whether the U.S. expects support from any countries other than Israel and the Sunni Gulf states, she said that in his talks with counterparts, Pompeo has found appreciation and understanding from “many countries” for “our concerns about Iran’s malign activity.”

“No one is ignorant to all the bad stuff that the Iranian regime has been involved with,” Nauert said. “And countries have an interest in joining us because we have a lot more work that we can do together, and recognizing that Iran needs to be addressed in a more comprehensive fashion.”

Long before Trump took office, Israel was calling for a tougher international response to Iran, its number one enemy.

It has found common cause with Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbors, which oppose Iran’s attempts to spread its influence across the region, especially through its military intervention in Syria and Yemen and support for Shi’ite proxies in Lebanon and Iraq.

Just this week, the six Sunni Gulf states joined the U.S. in designating for sanctions the top leadership of Hezbollah, a move aimed directly at Iran, the Lebanese terrorist group’s chief sponsor and ally.

JCPOA-released wealth ‘drove Iranian malign activity’

On CBS’ “Face the Nation” last Sunday, Pompeo said the envisaged coalition would target not just Iran’s nuclear programs but also such issues as its “effort to build Hezbollah,” “threats against Israel” and “the work they’re doing in Yemen to launch missiles into Saudi Arabia.”

Pompeo said the JCPOA – which offered Iran sanctions relief in return for restrictions on its nuclear program – had provided the regime with the economic benefits it has used for those belligerent activities.

“The wealth that was created in Iran as a result of the JCPOA drove Iranian malign activity,” he said. “President Trump’s withdrawal is aimed at denying them that wealth, denying them the resources to continue their bad behavior, to take the money away from them.”

While responding to questions Thursday on the coalition to be established, Nauert said she had no information on whether it would include groups like the exiled National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)/People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran (MEK).

The NCRI/MEK enjoys strong support from some current and former policymakers from both parties in Washington. Among others, Ambassador John Bolton, now Trump’s national security advisor, has been a popular speaker at its annual “Free Iran” events in Paris.

The group is dedicated to the overthrow of the clerical regime, and says it wants to replace it with a pluralistic, democratic, non-nuclear republic.

Iran views it as a terrorist organization, and the group was the main target when the regime carried out a campaign of mass extrajudicial executions three decades ago.

NCRI/MEK was a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization until delisted in 2012.