Pompeo made the comments at the National Council of Resistance of Iran HQ in Paris on Thursday [Photo by Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images]
Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has claimed that that the end of the Islamic regime in Iran is near, due to Donald Trump’s re-entry into the White House.
Speaking at the opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran HQ in Paris on Thursday, Pompeo said that Iranians must prepare for the end of the regime and for the next ‘maximum pressure’ campaign.
“In just a few days, Trump will return to office. He has talked in detail about bringing back the Maximum Pressure Campaign that had proved so successful,” Pompeo said.
“And this brings me to the point that this morning we should all consider in the days ahead. We can feel that the regime’s end is within reach,” he added.
Following Trump’s victory in the US election, his team has been reviving a campaign of pressure against Iran that his first administration pursued, dubbed “maximum pressure 2.0”.
Such a campaign is likely to see the US place greater sanctions on Iran, as well as military pressure in the form of new regional deployments or even the use of force, according to reports in US media citing officials in Trump’s transition team.
The aim of such a campaign is to prevent Iran from enriching uranium to attain nuclear weapons, an initiative that had been stopped under the nuclear deal which Trump withdrew from.
Although clarifying he was not speaking for Trump, Pompeo, who was part of his first administration, said that he was confident that the maximum pressure campaign would return.
“It will be the beginning of the end to help the people of Iran and the malign regime that this is in sight in Iran today.”
Iran has this week began a series of military drills set to last until March, including near the Natanz nuclear enrichment plant, in response to what Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps spokesman Ali Mohammad Naini said were “new security threats”.
Kamran Matin, Director of the Centre for Advanced International Theory at the University of Sussex, told The New Arab that Pompeo’s statement was a reflection of the post 7 October regional system.
Since 7 October, Iran’s allies in its so-called ‘Axis of Resistance’ have faced multiple setbacks, with Hamas and Hezbollah suffering major blows against Israel, and the Assad regime being toppled in Syria.
Such developments have left Iran unable to project power and negotiate with the US like it previously had, Matin said, adding that the deteriorated economic situation has made a general uprising more likely than ever.
In recent years Iran has suffered several uprisings against the regime, the most recent being the nationwide uprising that was triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini in 2022 after her detention by the morality police for not following Iran’s mandatory hijab laws.
“Trump’s revival of ‘maximum pressure’ will bring the Iranian regime to the brink. It has either to make significant concessions to the US which will amount to dismantling its nuclear program and recognising Israel or resist US conditions and face potential military strike at its nuclear and military infrastructure,” Matin said.
“In either case the Islamic Republic we know will no longer exist,” he added.
