Behind the scenes: Pompeo met with around 15 Iranian-American community leaders on Monday morning in a conference room at the Renaissance Dallas Hotel. The secretary gave brief opening remarks and then spent most of the session listening and answering questions.
- The most provocative question he fielded, according to the sources, was: “If regime change does not occur internally what is the endgame?”
- Pompeo replied, “We’re careful not to use the language of regime change.” He then told the group that the administration would not intervene militarily in Iran.
- Another participant asked, “Has the idea of a coup been considered?” Pompeo joked that “Even if we did, would I be telling you guys about it?” and the room broke out in laughter.
Pompeo used euphemisms and diplo-speak to describe the administration’s position on Iran.
- “Our mission set is to give them the opportunity … capacity to create opportunity, create that and provide transitional support,” he said, per the notes.
- “Our best interest is a non-revolutionary set of leaders leading Iran,” he added, according to the notes.
Between the lines: Pompeo said the Trump administration would have handled the 2009 Green Movement uprising against the regime very differently than the Obama administration did. But he did not say how.
- Pompeo also said there is “no such thing as a moderate inside the Iranian regime anywhere today.”
- And when asked how he could guarantee that the Trump administration’s tough new sanctions wouldn’t hurt the people of Iran, he replied: “There are no guarantees.”
Pompeo also distanced the administration from the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, or MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq), an anti-regime group that the U.S. once designated as a foreign terrorist organization.
- Several people in the room told Pompeo they worried about what message it sent for close Trump allies — National Security Adviser John Bolton and Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani among them — to appear friendly with the MEK, whom some in the room described as worse than the current regime.
- “Let’s not beat around the bush,” Pompeo replied, according to one source’s notes. “Ambassador Bolton spoke at an MEK rally. President Trump and I have not.”
- “He acknowledged that John Bolton and Rudy Giuliani had connections or ties, whatever you want to call it … with the MEK, but he did say that he and the president did not,” confirmed another person in the room, Texas attorney Michael Payma.
Why this matters: With Trump as president, Bolton as national security adviser and Pompeo as secretary of state — the American people have never had a government so hostile to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
- Even though Pompeo made his comments in a relatively private setting — and therefore they cannot be set into stone — it’s significant for the secretary of state to tell members of the Iranian diaspora that the Trump administration won’t be intervening militarily to overthrow the regime in Tehran.
- It’s also significant for Pompeo to distance the Trump administration from the MEK organization — given the group’s public association with high-profile Trumpworld figures like Giuliani and Bolton.
- (The State Department did not respond to requests for comment when we gave them visibility of this reporting.)
