On Tuesday, asked by a skeptical CNN reporter about the demands he had laid out on Monday for the theocratic and despotic regime in Iran, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made it clear that the Trump Administration harbors no illusions about the Iranian regime’s actions, retorting, “Should we allow them to be terrorists?”
Trump Reporter Michelle Kosinski of CNN bemoaned the tough stance Pompeo had outlined in his set of 12 demands for Iran that he had articulated on Monday. She said:
The demands or whatever you want to call them that you laid out for Iran yesterday, it seems like they’re partially because you laid them all out and partially because of what they are, there’s not going to be much room for negotiation, if any on any of those. Would you agree with that? And because of the way that was put out there, what makes you think that Iran is going to be willing to work with the U.S. on this? If it’s sanctions, wouldn’t that take a very long time at this point?
Pompeo, in his inimitable no-nonsense style, responded:
I don’t know which of those demands. Should we allow them to be terrorists? Is that one we should compromise on? Should we, how many missiles are they allowed to fire? I mean I, the answer is the benchmark I set forward yesterday is a very low standard. It’s the standard of behavior we expect from countries all around the world.
There aren’t a special set of rules that we set forward yesterday for Iran. We simply asked them to behave in a way normal, non-belligerent nations behave. That’s it. It’s simple. There’s not a special category of people who are permitted to fire missiles into Riyadh. We just asked them to behave like a normal nation. And so I have every reason to think that the Iranian people want that for their country as well.