During a press briefing, ahead of this weeks United Nations General Assembly, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asserted that the Trump Administration’s actions against the Islamic Republic of Iran have made it clear to the Ayatollah regime that the United States will no longer accept its malign activities across the globe. According to Pompeo “This administration took over at a time when Qasem Soleimani and the Ayatollah were running rapid through five capitals in the Middle East, and we have engaged in significant activity that has begone to counter the Iranian threat. Today, they remain the world’s largest state sponsor of terror, and it is our firm effort to make sure that that not remain the case. We’ve put a number of restrictions in place, we will reimpose another set of sanctions come this November, our actions in and around the Middle East have made clear we will not continue to accept Iran’s bad behavior.” In response to calls by American officials for a regime change in the Islamic Republic, U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton emphasized that a regime change is not the Trump Administration’s policy, rather an ongoing measure to exert maximum pressure on the Ayatollah regime that will force it to change its behavior. “As I have said rapidity, regime change in Iran Is not the administration’s policy. As Mike Pompeo just said, we’ve imposed very stringent sanctions on Iran, more are coming, and what we accept from Iran is massive changes in their behavior, and until that happens we will continue to exert what the President has called “maximum pressure,” that’s what we intend to do,” Bolton said.
