Sputnik: What ultimate aim does the Iran Action Group pursue? How much could its efforts add up to the already existing tensions?
Dr. Foad Izadi: This is nothing new for Mr. Pompeo, when he was the head of the CIA he orchestrated, organized another group; he called it [the] Iran Mission Center then and he’s basically the key man at the management here again, and the main reason I believe he has to do this is because Trump’s policy with regard to Iran is not very popular with the foreign policy establishment in the United States; the people who work at the State Department or the CIA don’t believe in what Trump is doing. The majority of people who deal with [Iranian] issues did not like the fact that Trump pulled out of the nuclear agreement, and in order to make sure that the bureaucracy is in line with Pompeo's vision and the administration's goals, he has to basically organize them in this fashion, making sure that they’re basically following the line when they comes to Iran policy. The person who is in charge of this group is Brian Hook who was the head of policy planning at the State Department, and he’s leaving the job and he’s going to do the Iran stuff full time. He was a John Bolton protégé; he was John Bolton's advisor some years back, so he’s one of the few people in the State Department that actually likes the Trump policy.
The ultimate goal of that policy is to change the government in Iran, and the fact that they’re announcing this group on the 65th anniversary of the 1953 coup d’état is basically a sign that if we overthrew the Iranian government once before, we can do it again, and that’s we’re having this now.
Dr. Foad Izadi: That’s what they want to do; sometimes they say they want different behavior, change of behavior, sometimes they say they don’t want regime change, but if they were really interested in change of behavior they would negotiate with Iran; any type of negotiation involves giving some concessions at the same time if you want concessions from the other side. If you look at the 12 demands that Pompeo read a couple of months ago, the demands are designed in a way that Iran cannot accept them. I was reading an analysis by an American Iran expert and the demands of Pompeo had reminded him of the Austria-Hungary demands that were presented to Serbia in 1914, which is basically demands of a country that is surrounding another country; so they’re not really interested in changing Iran's behavior; they’re not really interested in negotiation with Iran. This is an opportunity and announcing a special representative for Iran they could've chosen someone that is interested in negotiations with Iran, but the fact that they have chosen Brian Hook, the person who has been the driving force behind Trump's Iran policy in the last many months, is an indication that they are interested in regime change, because Brian Hook has never been a person interested in reaching some sort of an agreement with Iran. In fact, there was an agreement with Iran under the Iran nuclear agreement and they got out, and Brian Hook was the person that was in charge of making sure that the US gets out of the document. Normally, in diplomacy, if people are interested in negotiations, when they reach an agreement they hold on to it and try to resolve other issues that they have difficulties with. The Trump administration is going the other way and not only are they not reaching new agreements, but they’re leaving existing agreements without any good reasons, and this is another indication that they're actually interested in changing Iran’s government.
The views expressed in this article are those of the speaker, and do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.