TEHRAN - After Trump announced U.S. pullout from the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA) on May 8, his new secretary of state Mike Pompeo on Monday set out Washington’s plan B which looked more like a declaration of war rather that a new roadmap.

Pompeo said the U.S. will apply economic and military pressure against Iran and will impose “the strongest sanctions in history” on the Islamic Republic.

As foreign secretary he was expected at least superficially to use a diplomatic language. However, he used a tough and hostile language against Iran and listed a number of conditions that Iran should accept for a new deal.

He talked in a way as if Iran is the source of all troubles in the Middle East and the larger world or possibly the warming of the climate. 

Journalists who were listening to his speech at the Heritage Foundation were saying one should not expect Pompeo to speak like a chief diplomat because he is serving Trump who according to Professor Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, chair of the Centre for Iranian Studies at the London Middle East Institute, “is the most dangerous man in recent human history” and French President François Hollande in August 2016 said makes one to “retch”.

Among his list of conditions was that Iran should not be allowed to enrich uranium, a right which Iran is entitled to as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Pompeo, whose speech showed that like his boss he is also full of hatred for Iran, is ignoring that fact that it was not Iran’s fault that Saudi Arabia and its coalition are caught in the Yemen quagmire despite the use of U.S.-supplied sophisticated weapons against Houthi rebels. 

Also, he faulted Iran for the pro-democracy movement in Bahrain. He is either too stupid to understand that the uprising in Bahrain was influenced by the Arab uprising or he is just resorting to every ridiculous ploys to demonize Iran.

Pompeo also looked unhappy for Iran’s help to Iraqis in their war against ISIL. As former CIA chief he must not be that much stupid not to know that if it was not for Iran’s prompt action ISIL terrorists, who are ideologically inspired by Saudi Wahhabism, had captured Baghdad and other important cities in Iraq and more than a decade of efforts by the U.S. to calm down conflicts in Iraq would have gone up in the air in a matter of hours or days.

The secretary of state ridiculously claimed that Iran supported al-Qaeda. In fact, al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups are a joint product of Saudi Arabia and the U.S. who were fanning the flames of religious extremism to counter the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Summarily, Pompeo did not present a plan B. His strategy looked more like a declaration of war and he appeared like a “war minister” and not a “foreign minister”.