{"id":10417,"date":"2020-01-16T11:42:48","date_gmt":"2020-01-16T08:12:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/?p=10417"},"modified":"2021-01-21T19:28:46","modified_gmt":"2021-01-21T15:58:46","slug":"us-restricts-its-support-for-regime-change-in-iran-what-happened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/posts\/10417","title":{"rendered":"US restricts its support for Regime change in Iran: What happened?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mike Pompeo, a man who played an important role in General Soleimani’s assassination directed his diplomats to restrict their connections with forces that support a regime change in Iran. What changed in US policy towards Iran? What deal broke out between two arch-rivals?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An Iran hawk who advocated killing general Qasem Soleimani, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has ordered his diplomats to limit contacts with militant Iranian exile and opposition groups that support either regime change or greater rights for ethnic groups like Kurds and Arabs.
\nComing on the back of the Soleimani killing, Mr. Pompeo\u2019s directive appears to put an end to the Trump administration\u2019s hinting that it covertly supports insurgent efforts to at the very least destabilize the Iranian government if not topple it.
\nA litmus test of the directive by Mr. Pompeo, known to have a close relationship with Donald J. Trump, is likely to be whether the president\u2019s personal lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, distances himself from the controversial National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an offshoot of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a group that was taken off the US Treasury\u2019s list of designated terrorists several years ago.
\nMr. Pompeo said that direct US government engagement with these groups could prove counterproductive to our policy goal of seeking a comprehensive deal with the Iranian regime that addresses its destabilizing behaviour.
\nMr. Giuliani is a frequent, well-paid speaker at gatherings of the group that has built a significant network among Western political elites. The council and the Mujahideen openly call for regime change in Iran.
\nThe Mujahideen were moved with US assistance from their exile base in Iraq to a reportedly Saudi-funded secretive facility in Albania.
\nA New Jersey-based lobbying firm hired by the NCRI, Rosemont Associates, reported last year in its filing as a foreign agent frequent email and telephone contact on behalf of its client with the US embassy in the Albanian capital of Tirana as well as Brian Hook, the US Special Representative for Iran, and Gabriel Noronha, an aide to Mr. Hook.
\nIn his directive, Mr. Pompeo said that \u201cdirect US government engagement with these groups could prove counterproductive to our policy goal of seeking a comprehensive deal with the Iranian regime that addresses its destabilizing behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n

The secretary went on to say that Iranian opposition groups \u201ctry to engage US officials regularly to gain at least the appearance of tacit support and enhance their visibility and clout.\u201d
\nMr. Pompeo\u2019s cable, while keeping a potential negotiated deal with Iran on the table, does not stop other US government agencies from covertly supporting the various groups, that also include Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of al-Ahwaz (AMLA), the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan, and the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI).<\/p>\n

Iran, which has long believed that the United States, alongside Saudi Arabia and Israel, supported the Mujahideen as well as ethnic militants that intermittently launch attacks inside Iran, is likely to take a wait-and see-attitude towards Mr. Pompeo\u2019s directive that could be seen as a signal that the Trump administration is not seeking regime change.
\nThe timing of the directive is significant. Iran responded to the killing of Mr. Soleimani with carefully calibrated missile attacks on US facilities in Iraq in a bid to create an environment in which backchanneling potentially could steer the United States and Iran back to the negotiating table.
\nThe appointment was followed by publication by a Riyadh-based think tank believed to be close to crown prince Mohammed bin Salman of a study for Saudi support for a low-level Baloch insurgency in Iran
\nWhile it was uncertain that one round of escalated tensions would do the trick, potential efforts were not helped by the death of Oman\u2019s Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said, a key interlocutor who has repeatedly helped resolve US-Iranian problems and initiated contacts that ultimately led to the 2015 international agreement that curbed Iran\u2019s nuclear program.
\nIn his directive, Mr. Pompeo, referring to Komala, acknowledged that \u201cIran\u2019s regime appears to assess that the United States and\/or Israel support this group of militant Kurds.\u201d
\nIranian perceptions were reinforced not only by calls for regime change by senior figures like Mr. Giuliani and Saudi prince Turki al-Faisal, a former head of the kingdom\u2019s intelligence service and ex-ambassador to Britain and the United States, but also the appointment in 2018 of Steven Fagin as counsel general in Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan.
\nShortly before moving to Erbil, Mr. Fagin met In Washington as head of the State Department\u2019s Office of Iranian Affairs, with Mustafa Hijri, leader of the KDPI as it stepped up its attacks in Iranian Kurdistan.
\nIranian perceptions were further informed by the appointment of John Bolton, Mr. Trump\u2019s since departed national security advisor and like Mr. Giuliani a frequent speaker at NCRI events, who publicly advocates support of ethnic insurgencies in Iran in a bid to change the regime.
\nAs Mr. Trump\u2019s first director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Mr. Pompeo named Michael D\u2019Andrea, a hard-charging, chain-smoking covert operations officer, alternatively nicknamed the Dark Prince or Ayatollah Mike, whose track record includes overseeing the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, as head of the CIA\u2019s Iran operations.
\nThe appointment was followed by publication by a Riyadh-based think tank believed to be close to crown prince Mohammed bin Salman of a study for Saudi support for a low-level Baloch insurgency in Iran. Prince Mohammed vowed around the same time that \u201cwe will work so that the battle is for them in Iran, not in Saudi Arabia.\u201d
\nPakistani militants have claimed that Saudi Arabia had stepped up funding of militant madrassas or religious seminaries in the Pakistani province of Balochistan that allegedly serve as havens for anti-Iranian fighters.<\/p>\n

The New York Times reported this week that aides to Prince Mohammed had in the past discussed with private businessmen the assassination of Mr. Soleimani, an architect of Iran\u2019s regional network of proxies, and other Iranians as well as ways of sabotaging the country\u2019s economy.
\nMr. Pompeo\u2019s directive is unlikely to persuade Iran that Washington has had a change of heart. Indeed, it hasn\u2019t. Mr. Trump maintains his campaign of maximum pressure and this week imposed additional sanctions on Iran.
\nNonetheless, potentially taking regime change off the table facilitates backchanneling that aims at getting the two nations to talk again.<\/p>\n

Dr. James Dorsey –\u00a0 Global Villagespace<\/strong>
\nDr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of W\u00fcrzburg\u2019s Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog. The views expressed in this article are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily reflect Global Village Space\u2019s editorial policy.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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