Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticized the Biden government’s willingness to restart nuclear talks with Iran, fearing it would lead to sanctions and concessions – but little substantive change in the country’s nuclear policy.
“The ayatollah only understands strength. I led a response to the Iranian threat that protected the American people from their terror and supported the Jewish state of Israel, ”Pompeo told the Washington Free Beacon on Thursday. “The adoption of the European Union’s accommodation model will guarantee Iran a path to a nuclear arsenal.”
Pompeo’s comment came on the same day that the State Department said it would receive an invitation to restore diplomacy with Iran.
In 2018, the Trump administration withdrew from the agreement three years after it was brokered by the Obama administration with Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union. The deal reduced sanctions against Iran in return for the country reducing its stockpile of enriched uranium needed to power nuclear weapons.
Since withdrawing from the U.S., Iran has admitted that it violated the 2015 agreement using advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges on an underground plant.
Pompeo credited the Trump administration’s firmness, saying that European nations “wanted to appease the Iranian theocracy for all my time as secretary of state.”
“We refuse,” he said.
Earlier this week, Pompeo said the United States needs to show strength when it comes to dealing with Iran.
“When the Iranians feel weak, they will attack,” Pompeo told Fox News @ Night. “What we did was that, when they came after an American, we made that very clear: if they attacked an American through a proxy force in Iraq, if they attacked an American through Hezbollah in Syria, wherever it is, wherever Iran is responsible, we were going to hold Iranians accountable. This is the kind of force that built the model of deterrence that we had in relation to Iran. I hope that this current government will not give up on that. “