Pompeo has not outlined a strategy, but rather a grab bag of wishful thinking that can only be interpreted as a call for regime change in Iran.
The speech suggests that the administration believes it can extract maximalist concessions by applying unilaterally & over the objection of our allies & partners the same tools that were deployed w/wide international support during the final years of the nuclear crisis.
That's a recipe for disaster. Sanctions are powerful tools, even when deployed unilaterally, but the entire history of US policy toward Tehran since 1979 underscores that multilateral cooperation is essential to countering Iran's most dangerous policies.
Pompeo's final words (in response to a Q) underscore how explicitly the US strategy is regime change. Note that no other US president has *openly* sought to effect regime change in Iran. This is a first.
This is no longer about Trump fulfilling campaign promises or trying to satisfy his own ego re: a 'bigger, better deal.' It's his infantile approach to foreign policy that purports to solve intractable challenges through the application of maximalist pressure.
The internal politics of Iran had shifted in a genuinely precarious fashion: fissures within the establishment, deep alienation w/in at least some proportion of the population, anticipation around succession that had begun to prompt consideration of what (not who) comes next
Peaceful transition was always a long shot as a short-term hope. But the regime's slow-motion metastasis combined with the opportunities for political entrepreneurship around succession seemed to present some new possibilities.
But Pompeo's incitement will undermine any peaceful transition, maybe destroy it outright: prompts the regime to double down on repression; dissuades Iranians from mobilizing & will elicit a nationalist backlash that will strengthen the current system. What a farce.
