Iran Focus
London, 14 Nov – US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Newsweek on Monday of helping” Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif spread “lies” that the US is preparing to sanction food being imported into Iran.
Pompeo tweeted: “Shame on #FakeNewsweek for helping @JZarif spread lies. The truth is: The U.S. does not, and never did, sanction food and medicine. They are exempt from sanctions, as are financial transactions related to humanitarian needs.”
This fiery remark was in response to a tweet from Zarif that included a picture of the magazine article and accused Pompeo of threatening to starve Iranians.
He wrote: “#WeWontForget @SecPompeo openly threatening to starve Iranians—a crime against humanity—in a desperate attempt to impose US whims on Iran. Like his predecessors, he’ll also learn that—in spite of US efforts—Iran will not just survive but advance w/out sacrificing its sovereignty.”
The Newsweek article’s headline was an out-of-context quote from an interview Pompeo did with BBC Persia, which is click bait at best, where he explained that Iran needed to make decisions about their behaviour with regards to the needs of the Iranian people.
He said: “The leadership has to make a decision that they want their people to eat. They have to make a decision that they want to use their wealth to import medicine and not use their wealth to fund [Islamic extremism]. That’s the Iranian government’s choice on how to use Iranian wealth. If they choose to squander if the Iranian leadership chooses to spoil it, if they choose to use it in a way that doesn’t benefit the Iranian people. I’m very confident the Iranian people will take a response that tries to fix that themselves as well.”
As you can see from the full text of the quote, Pompeo did not threaten to starve the Iranian people or deny them medical care. He only pointed out that Iran should be prioritising the needs of the Iranian people, who are already impoverished due to the poor decisions of the mullahs, rather than funding terrorist groups.
As an oversimplified example, if Iran prior to the sanctions had $100, they should be spending that on benefitting the Iranian people, but the majority of it (say $90) went to their quest for expansionism and their terrorist militias.
If the sanctions cut, the Regime’s wealth down to $10, you would expect the mullahs to spend all of it on their people, but rather the mullahs are spending $9 on their malign behaviour and only $1 on the people. That is how Iran is making the decision to starve their own people, by importing weapons and components for nuclear weapons production, rather than the food and medicine the people need.
