Pompeo says 'no one's going to argue' he and Trump aren't 'tough on Iran'

published 4 November 2018

The sanctions to be re-imposed on Iran Monday will leave no doubt as to the Trump administration's stance toward Tehran, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Fox News Sunday.

"[T]he sanctions that will be re-imposed tomorrow are the toughest sanctions ever put in place on the Islamic Republic of Iran," Pompeo told host Chris Wallace.

"I am very confident that the sanctions that will be re-imposed this Monday — not only the crude oil sanctions, [but] the financial sanctions that are being put in place by the Treasury Department and over 600 designations of individuals and companies in Iran — will have the intended effect to alter the Iranian regime's behavior," he continued. "No one's going to argue that Secretary Pompeo isn't tough on Iran and no one is going to argue that President Trump isn't doing the same."

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Trump, for his part, celebrated the sanctions with a Game of Thrones meme on Twitter Friday.

Watch the full interview below; the first half focuses on Iran, after which conversation turns to North Korea and Saudi Arabia. And read about the human cost of sanctions on countries like Iran here at The Week. Bonnie Kristian

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.