Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned the Biden administration’s willingness to restart nuclear talks with Iran, fearing they could lead to sanctions and concessions relief – but little substantial 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 its terror and backed the Jewish state of Israel, ”Pompeo told the Washington Free Beacon on Thursday. “By adopting the European Union’s accommodation model, Iran will guarantee the path to a nuclear arsenal.”
Pompeo’s comments came on the same day the State Department said it would welcome an invitation to re-establish diplomacy with Iran.
In 2018, the Trump administration withdrew from the deal three years after the Obama administration brokered with Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union. The deal reduced sanctions against Iran in exchange for reducing the supply of enriched uranium needed to fuel nuclear weapons.
Since the US withdrawal, Iran has admitted it violated the 2015 deal by using advanced uranium-enriching centrifuges in an underground plant.
Pompeo called the Trump administration’s steadfastness, saying that European nations “wanted to appease the Iranian theocracy my entire time as secretary of state.”
“We declined,” he said.
Earlier this week, Pompeo said America needs to show strength when it comes to dealing with Iran.
“If the Iranians feel weakness, they will attack,” Pompeo said on “Fox News @ Night.” “What we did is, when they came after an American, we made this very clear: whether they were attacking an American through a proxy force in Iraq, whether they were attacking an American through Hezbollah in Syria, wherever it was, wherever it was. Iran was responsible, we were going to hold the Iranians to account. That’s the kind of force that built the deterrence model we had regarding Iran. I hope this current government does not give up on that. “