Iranian general Qassem Soleimani is in Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s crosshairs, as the top U.S. diplomat tours the Middle East and Europe for a series of meetings.
“Qasem Soleimani is causing trouble throughout Iraq and Syria, and we need to raise the cost for him, for he and his organization and for him personally,” Pompeo told The National, an English-language outlet based in Abu Dhabi.
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Soleimani’s Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps forces have been an aggravation for the U.S. in both countries, especially in the years since the rise of the Islamic State in the region. Iran has deployed crucial ground forces to sustain Syrian President Bashar Assad, while Soleimani took advantage of Iran’s relationship with Shia Muslim militias to have military influence in Iraq.
“With respect to the Iraqi Government, we’re working closely with the Iraqis to make sure that as they move through their government formation process – as the election is now over, as they move through the government formation process, what America wants is an Iraqi — Iraq for Iraqis, not influenced by Iran but rather comprised of the various groups: the Kurds, the Sunnis, the Shias,” Pompeo said.
U.S. officials face a similar difficulty in Syria, where Iran has partnered with Russia to preserve the Assad regime. Pompeo hopes that the renewal of economic sanctions, which the U.S. has been working to implement aggressively in the months since President Trump decided to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, will help counteract their broader regional aggression.
“[W]e intend to do a number of things, though one that we are most focused on today is ensuring that we deny Iran the financial capacity to continue this bad behavior,” Pompeo told Sky News Arabia in another interview on Tuesday. “So, it’s a broad range, a series of sanctions aimed not at the Iranian people, but rather aimed at the singular mission of convincing the Iranian regime that its malign behavior is unacceptable and has a real high cost for them.”
Sanctions and financial pressure may not be enough to thwart Iran, according to some administration allies.
“Economic power will need to be married with diplomacy, and occasionally, kinetic action in the Middle East if the goal is to get Iran to abandon its present course,” Behnam Ben Taleblu, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said Tuesday in comments on Pompeo’s interview. “It will be impossible to have a successful Iran policy if there is no change in U.S. policy toward the theaters of conflict — like Syria — that Iran invests so heavily in.”
Such changes could be in the offing, Pompeo hinted. “We think it’s important that every place Iran attempts to use its force we raise the cost for them such that the Iranian people will ultimately reject that use of force,” he said.
