As Trump administration attacks the Iranian regime, U.S. Secretary of State addresses Iranian Americans in Simi Valley
Amid tough talk by the Trump administration against the Iranian regime, the United States’ top diplomat, Michael Pompeo, delivered remarks aimed at winning the hearts of the Iranian American community during a Sunday stop in Southern California.
During a talk at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, the U.S. Secretary of State said the “Iranian diaspora is diverse .. but I think everyone can agree that the regime in Iran has been a nightmare for the Iranians.”
Pompeo told Iranian American members of the audience that the administration “dreams the same dream with the people of Iran that you do.”
He assured that the day this dream would be fulfilled would be coming.
Southern California, where Pompeo spoke, is home to an estimated hundreds of thousands of people of Iranian ancestry. Many Iranian Americans arrived in the 1960s and 1970s, and some came amid the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
Pompeo’s remarks came amid an effort by the Trump administration to place pressure on the regime in Iran. Some have interpreted the administration’s strategy toward Iran, which Pompeo outlined in May, as a call for regime change, but the secretary has said he wants to see a change in the behavior of Iran’s leaders.
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Pompeo’s talk, titled “Supporting Iranian Voices,” also comes a year before the 40th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution.
“The 40 years of fruit from the revolution has been bitter — 40 years of kleptocracy, 40 years of the people’s wealth squandered on terrorism, 40 years of ordinary Iranians thrown in jail for peaceful expression of their rights,” Pompeo said.
Despite dismissing talk of regime change, Pompeo spoke harshly of of the current regime.
“The ideologues who forcibly came to power in 1979 and remain in power today are driven by a desire to conform all of Iranian society to the tenets of the Islamic Revolution,” he said.
Pompeo accused Iran’s leaders of lining their pockets with public funds, as well as of supporting terrorist acts. The Iranian people’s “prosperity” has become “acceptable casualties in the march to fulfill the revolution,” he said.
He also said that Iranians have suffered religious persecution, and their freedom of expression has been severely restricted.
The events in Iran have also affected European countries, where there have been terrorist attacks funded by the regime, and American soldiers have been killed by “Iranian-made IEDs,” according to Pompeo.
Pompeo said the United States is taking a tough stance against Iran “to cut off the funds that the regime uses to enrich itself and support death and destruction.”
“We have an obligation to put maximum pressure on the regime’s ability to generate and move money, and we will do so,” he said.
This involves “the reimposition of sanctions around Iran’s banking and energy sectors” and working to limit imports of Iranian crude oil into other countries.
President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal in May and the first sanctions to be reimposed were expected to hit on Aug 4.
Pompeo’s comments also come amid uneasy relations between some in the Iranian American community and the Trump administration, which is enforcing a travel ban against several Muslim-majority countries, including Iran.
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During a question and answer session, facilitated by former California Gov. Pete Wilson, Pompeo addressed the travel ban, saying that Iran is being included because the country has not provided “basic” information needed to vet people who come into the country. He said that students can still come into the country, despite the ban.
Also, Trump in a stern tweet warned Iran’s president not to threaten the United States.
Trump tweeted early Monday Eastern time about the dangers to Iran of making hostile threats after Hassan Rouhani said Sunday “American must understand well that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace and war with Iran is the mother of all wars.”
Trump responded with a tweet that warned: “NEVER EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.