Pompeo: Iran won’t get nukes on Trump’s watch

“Iran won’t have a nuclear weapon on our watch,” Pompeo said on Sunday.

By World Israel News Staff

“President Trump has been very clear. Iran won’t have a nuclear weapon on our watch. We’ll stop it,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Fox News on Sunday in an interview with host Chris Wallace.

“Is the threat of a nuclear Iran increasing?” Wallace asked, noting Iran’s recent announcement to develop “advanced centrifuges to enrich uranium faster,” its third breach of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or 2015 nuclear accords.

Pompeo said that the ease with which Iran is currently departing from the deal is proof that it wasn’t working.

“One of the central failures of the JCPOA is that whatever limits there were could be turned back on in a minute… They make an announcement; the next thing you know, they’re spinning centrifuges at higher and higher enrichment rates. This was a crazy failed deal,” Pompeo said.

The secretary of state leveled criticism at the Obama administration for orchestrating the deal, which Trump abandoned in May 2018.

“The challenge is, of course, we came in after the previous administration had given the Islamic Republic of Iran, the ayatollah, given him billions of dollars in economic wealth with which to build these very programs,” to develop nuclear weapons, he said.

He noted that the Trump administration’s approach is different – to develop alliances within the region to reduce the Iranian threat. He said U.S. sanctions were working.

“We can see it with Hezbollah. They have fewer resources. We can see it with the Shia militias in Iraq. They’re scrambling for resources.

“We think the Iranian Government will shrink, that their GDP will shrink by as much as 12 or 14 percent this year. This will reduce their capacity to purchase the things they need, the equipment they need, the materials they need, to inflict terror around the world.

“That’s President Trump’s approach. I think we’ve been very successful so far,” he said.

Iran