Pompeo: Reentering Iran deal would make Middle East ‘less secure’

Former secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday that the U.S. re-entering the Iran nuclear deal would make the Middle East ‘less secure.’

During an interview with John Catsimatidis on his radio show on WABC 770 AM, Pompeo appeared to defend the work that the former Trump administration did with Iran, stating that the U.S had made progress. 

He noted, however, that the administration wasn’t able to get a deal that it felt would prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon.

“The Iranians understand strength. They understand power. They understand resolve. We demonstrated that. And when we did, the Iranians backed down,” Pompeo said. “We didn’t get all the way to where we would’ve hoped we could get in respect to getting Iran to stand down and enter an agreement that would’ve actually avoided them having a nuclear weapon, but we made an awful lot of progress.”

Trump withdrew from the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in 2018 and imposed harsh sanctions on the Middle Eastern country.

President Biden has said he would rejoin the deal if Iran came back into compliance regarding limits on stockpiling and enriching uranium. His goal is to build a “longer and stronger” agreement once both nations have reentered the agreement.

Pompeo said that doing so would put the entire region in jeopardy.

“If this Administration unwinds that and goes back to the crappy deal that we had with Iran when President Obama was in office, America will be less secure,” he said. “Israel will be less secure. The Middle East will be less secure. And the entire region will be less stable.”

A bipartisan group of of 140 House lawmakers sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken asking him to take a “comprehensive” approach to the threats posed by Iran before re-joining the deal.

John Catsimatidis is an investor in The Hill.