Pompeo tells the truth about Iran

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered remarks last night in a speech titled “Supporting Iranian Voices” at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California. I have posted the video below (about 25 minutes). The State Department has posted the text of the speech along with its own video of Pompeo’s remarks here. The Los Angeles Times covered the speech here.

The place suggests the weight placed on the speech. President Reagan’s words and deeds in office hastened the fall of the Soviet Union. I think the Trump administration has something similar in mind for the powers that be in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Indeed, in the conclusion of his speech, Pompeo invokes and quotes Reagan’s 1982 Westminster Address.

President Reagan told the truth about Soviet Union. This was one pillar of his opposition to it. By contrast, the Obama administration subjected us to a Soviet style disinformation campaign directed against us to prettify the Iranian regime. In this speech Pompeo tells the truth about the mullahs, Reagan style.

Pompeo opened his remarks with an astounding summary of the regime’s corruption. It is worth the price of admission all by itself, but corruption isn’t among the evils of the regime most of concern to us. Pompeo gets to those in due course as well.

At about 10:30 into the video, someone in the audience makes the obligatory protest against Trump administration border enforcement policy. “If there were only so much freedom of expression in Iran,” Pompeo comments.

Addressing the Obama administration’s adoption of Iranian lies as American foreign policy, Pompeo explains:

You know, despite the regime’s clear record of aggression, America and other countries have spent years straining to identify a political moderate. It’s like an Iranian unicorn. (Laughter.) The regime’s revolutionary goals and willingness to commit violent acts haven’t produced anyone to lead Iran that can be remotely called a moderate or a statesman.

Some believe that President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif fit that bill. The truth is they are merely polished front men for the ayatollahs’ international con artistry. Their nuclear deal didn’t make them moderates; it made them wolves in sheep’s clothing. Governments around the world worry that confronting the Islamic Republic harms the cause of moderates, but these so-called moderates within the regime are still violent Islamic revolutionaries with an anti-America, anti-West agenda. You only have to take their own words for it.

All of this is worth taking in and it is accompanied by administration policy intended to squeeze the regime as well. We have no gap between words and deeds. Pompeo discusses the relevant policies adopted to squeeze the regime. We have no gap here between words and deeds. For those of us who suffered through the Obama administration’s misadventures with the mullahs, this speech is nothing short of an inspiration.

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