President Donald J. Trump’s New Strategy on Iran
October 13, 2017
In A World Gone Crazy
“It is time for the entire world to join us in demanding that Irans government end its pursuit of death and destruction. President Donald J. Trump”
President Donald J. Trump, in consultation with his national security team, has approved a new strategy for Iran. It is the culmination of nine months of deliberation with Congress and our allies on how to best protect American security.
Core Elements of the Presidents New Iran Strategy
The United States new Iran strategy focuses on neutralizing the Government of Irans destabilizing influence and constraining its aggression, particularly its support for terrorism and militants.
We will revitalize our traditional alliances and regional partnerships as bulwarks against Iranian subversion and restore a more stable balance of power in the region.
We will work to deny the Iranian regime and especially the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) funding for its malign activities, and oppose IRGC activities that extort the wealth of the Iranian people.
We will counter threats to the United States and our allies from ballistic missiles and other asymmetric weapons.
We will rally the international community to condemn the IRGCs gross violations of human rights and its unjust detention of American citizens and other foreigners on specious charges.
Most importantly, we will deny the Iranian regime all paths to a nuclear weapon.
The Nature of the Iranian Regime under Supreme Leader Khamenei
For 28 years, Ali Khamenei has been Irans Supreme Leader. Before that, he held the office of President for 8 years. In that time, he has shaped the Iranian regime in his image.
Khamenei and the IRGC have pursued a steady policy of spreading a revolutionary ideology aimed at undermining the international system and many states by force and subversion. His main enemy and rallying point has been and continues to be the United States of America, which he calls the Great Satan.
Under Khamenei, Iran exports violence, destabilizes its neighbors, and sponsors terrorism abroad. Within Iran, under Khameneis rule the Iranian government has oppressed its people, abusing their rights, restricting their access to the internet and the outside world, rigging elections, shooting student protesters in the street, and imprisoning political reformers like Mir Hussein Musavi and Mehdi Karroubi.
The Threats from the Iranian Regime
The reckless behavior of the Iranian regime, and the IRGC in particular, poses one of the most dangerous threats to the interests of the United States and to regional stability.
The Iranian regime has taken advantage of regional conflicts and instability to aggressively expand its regional influence and threaten its neighbors with little domestic or international cost for its actions.
This occurred most recently following the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) from the vacuum created by the Obama administrations ill-considered withdrawal from the region.
The full range of the Iranian regimes malign activities extends well beyond the nuclear threat it poses, including:
Ballistic missile development and proliferation;
Material and financial support for terrorism and extremism;
Support for the Assad regimes atrocities against the Syrian people;
Unrelenting hostility to Israel;
Consistently threatening freedom of navigation, especially in the strategically vital Persian Gulf;
Cyber-attacks against the United States, Israel, and Americas other allies and partners in the Middle East;
Grievous human rights abuses; and
Arbitrary detention of foreigners, including United States citizens, on specious charges and without due process.
The Need for a Comprehensive Strategy
The previous Administrations myopic focus on Irans nuclear program to the exclusion of the regimes many other malign activities allowed Irans influence in the region to reach a high-water mark.
Over the last decade and a half, United States policy has also consistently prioritized the immediate threat of Sunni extremist organizations over the longer-term threat of Iranian-backed militancy.
In doing so, the United States has neglected Irans steady expansion of proxy forces and terrorist networks aimed at keeping its neighbors weak and unstable in hopes of dominating the greater Middle East. Recently, the Iranian regime has accelerated the seeding of these networks with increasingly destructive weapons as they try to establish a bridge from Iran to Lebanon and Syria.
The Trump Administration will not repeat these mistakes.
The Trump Administrations Iran policy will address the totality of these threats from and malign activities by the Government of Iran and will seek to bring about a change in the Iranians regimes behavior. The Trump Administration will accomplish these objectives through a strategy that neutralizes and counters Iranian threats, particularly those posed by the IRGC.
Countering the IRGC
Supreme Leader Khameneis primary tool and weapon in remaking Iran into a rogue state has been the hardline elements of the IRGC.
The IRGCs stated purpose is to subvert the international order. The IRGCs power and influence have grown over time, even as it has remained unaccountable to the Iranian people, answering only to Khamenei. It is hard to find a conflict or a suffering people in the Middle East that the IRGCs tentacles do _not_ touch.
Unaccountable to Irans elected leaders or its people, the IRGC has tried to gain control over large portions of Irans economy and choke off competition, all the while working to weaken and undermine Irans neighbors and perpetuate the chaos and instability in which it thrives.
The IRGC has armed Bashar al Assad and guided his butchering of his own people in Syria and has cynically condoned his use of chemical weapons.
The IRGC has sought to undermine the fight against ISIS with the influence of militant groups in Iraq under the IRGC’s control.
In Yemen, the IRGC has attempted to use the Houthis as puppets to hide Irans role in using sophisticated missiles and explosive boats to attack innocent civilians in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as to restrict freedom of navigation in the Red Sea.
The IRGC has even threatened terrorist attacks right here at home. Senior IRGC commanders plotted the murder of Saudi Arabias Ambassador to the United States, Adel Jubeir, on American soil in 2011. But for exceptional work by our law enforcement and intelligence officers to detect and disrupt this egregious act, the IRGC would have conducted this terrorist attack and assassination in our own capital and would have killed not only a Saudi Arabian diplomat, but a host of other innocent bystanders at a popular restaurant in Washington, D.C.
The IRGC, which repeatedly displays reckless hostility and disregard for the laws and norms that underpin the international order, threatens all nations and the global economy.
Our partners in the international community agree with us that the IRGCs reckless behavior threatens international peace and security. They agree that the IRGC is fanning sectarianism and perpetuating regional conflict. They agree that the IRGC is engaged in corrupt economic practices that exploit the Iranian people and suppress internal dissent, human rights, and Irans economic prosperity.
For all these reasons, we want to work with our partners to constrain this dangerous organization, for the benefit of international peace and security, regional stability, and the Iranian people.
The Iranian Nuclear Program and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
The Iranian regimes activities severely undercut whatever positive contributions to regional and international peace and security the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) sought to achieve.
Even with regard to JCPOA itself, the Iranian regime has displayed a disturbing pattern of behavior, seeking to exploit loopholes and test the international communitys resolve.
Iranian military leaders have stated publicly that they will refuse to allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections of their military sites. These statements fly in the face of Irans commitments under JCPOA and the Additional Protocol. Not long ago these same organizations hid nuclear facilities on military sites.
This behavior cannot be tolerated; the deal must be strictly enforced, and the IAEA must fully utilize its inspection authorities.
http://publicpool.kinja.com/subject-embargoed-president-donald-j-trumps-new-strat-1819425957
The Insanity Continues: U.S Ambassador Nikki Haley slams U.N.’s Anti-Israel Bias (go to the source to see the video)
See also: Trump Puts Iran Nuclear Deal In Limbo By Refusing To Certify: President Trump is stopping short of asking Congress to re-impose sanctions on Tehran
https://newsstand.google.com/articles/CAIiEMdedaPsGe8n7bsR5ni5chcqFggEKg4IACoGCAow9vBNMK3UCDCvpUk
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48015.htm
Iran President Hassan Rouhani On Trump’s Decision Not To Certify Nuclear Deal
Posted October 13, 2017
Rouhani: US president’s anti-Iran speech pile of delusional claims
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says US President Donald Trump’s speech against the Islamic Republic was nothing more than insults and delirious talk.
“Mr. Trump’s remarks on Iran…contained nothing but expletives and a pile of delusional allegations against the Iranian nation,” Rouhani said in a televised speech on Friday moments after Trump delivered a speech outlining US strategy on the Islamic Republic.
The US president refused to certify the 2015 international nuclear agreement between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and warned he might ultimately terminate it, in defiance of other world powers and undermining a landmark victory of multilateral diplomacy.
Trump said he would choose not to certify that Tehran is complying with the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Trump also said his goal is to ensure Iran would never obtain a nuclear weapon, adding, “We will not continue down a path whose predictable conclusion is more violence, more terror and the very real threat of Iran’s nuclear breakout.”
While Trump did not pull Washington out of the nuclear deal, he gave the US Congress 60 days to decide whether to reimpose economic sanctions against Tehran that were lifted under the pact. Reimposing sanctions would put the US at odds with other signatories of the accord such as the UK, France, China, Russia and Germany, as well as the European Union.
Rouhani urged the US president to brush up on his world history and geography to improve his comprehension of international obligations and global ethics, etiquette and conventions.
Rouhani further pointed to the history of US antagonism toward Iran, saying, “He has to study history better and more closely and know what they (US officials) have done to the Iranian people over the past sixty-something years and how they have treated the people of Iran during the past 40 years after the victory of the Revolution [in 1979].”
The Iranian president further rejected Trump’s demand that the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany be revised, saying the agreement would remain intact and no article or paragraph would be added or taken away from it.
He added that one president alone cannot abrogate an international deal, saying, “He [Trump] apparently does not know that this is not a bilateral document between Iran and the US for him to act in any way he wishes.”
“The Iranian nation has not yielded to any power and will not do so in the future,” Rouhani said, emphasizing that many countries supported former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during the imposed war against Iran in the 1980s but they failed to defeat the Iranians.
Watch video: (Go to the source to see the video)
Emma Olive 