US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo plans to urge members of the Iranian diaspora to "support" protesters in Iran, as the Trump administration hints at a desire for regime change in Tehran after turning its back on the Iranian nuclear accord.
President Donald Trump -- who has made the Islamic republic a favourite target since his unexpected rapprochement with North Korea -- decided on May 8 to restore all the sanctions that had been lifted as part of the multi-nation agreement aimed at preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
Following the US withdrawal that stunned even Washington's closest European allies, Pompeo on May 21 unveiled a "new strategy" intended to force Iran to yield to a dozen stringent demands or else face the "strongest sanctions in history".
The next US step is due today in the Ronald Reagan presidential library in Simi Valley, California, when the secretary of state delivers a speech entitled "Supporting Iranian Voices".
With the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution of 1979 a year away, Pompeo plans to retrace "40 years of stealing from the Iranian people, the terrorism they have committed around the region, the brutal repression at home" as well as the "religious persecution" there, a senior State Department official told reporters ahead of the speech.
The venue for Pompeo's address is significant, the official noted: some 2,50,000 Iranian-Americans live in Southern California.
"He will be exposing some of the corruption" of a "kleptocratic regime," the diplomat told reporters. "The regime has prioritized its ideological agenda over the welfare of the Iranian people."
Pompeo launched his campaign against Iran on Twitter last month, saying the government in Tehran and the Revolutionary Guards -- the regime's elite armed corps -- had "plundered the country's wealth" in proxy wars "while Iranian families struggle."
"Pompeo and the administration can do more than just rhetorical support to the Iranian protester."
But some senior members of the Trump administration -- notably national security advisor John Bolton -- have made it clear in the past that they would like to see the Tehran regime topple, and Pompeo himself said in May that "the Iranian people get to choose for themselves the kind of leadership they want." To Behnam Ben Taleblu, "genuine regime change can only come from inside."
With an upsurge of "Iranians of all different social classes protesting," he said, the Trump administration will have to decide whether it wants to "support elements that actually want to change the regime."
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