Q&A: Pompeo challenges Biden’s Iran policy

Mike Pompeo served as US secretary of state under former president Donald Trump in 2018-21 and as CIA director in 2017-18. In this interview, edited for length and clarity, Pompeo, speaking to Haik Gugarats on the sidelines of Argus' Americas Crude Summit in Houston, discusses US policy toward Iran, the conflict in Ukraine and the previous administration's handling of relations with Venezuela.

You implemented a policy of maximum pressure sanctions against Iran. The Biden administration is working to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal with Iran, from which your administration exited in 2018. What is the trajectory for US-Iranian relations? Are we doomed to have Iran's nuclear brinksmanship and US sanctions, or is there a way out?

Ebrahim Raisi, the new president of Iran, and the Ayatollah [Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader], are malign actors. They are conducting terror campaigns around the world. Just this past week, they flew missiles into Abu Dhabi, where there were many Americans. They are the world's largest state sponsor of terror. It is folly to think that one is going to negotiate with the Iranian regime to get them to become a normal nation, if you are not prepared to impose enormous cost.

We confronted it by starving the regime, denying them the resources to build out [Lebanon-based Islamist group] Hezbollah, to build out [Gaza-based Islamist group] Hamas, to conduct terror through Shia militias in Iraq. During our time in office, they were having $96bn in foreign exchange reserves down to about $4bn.

We were happy to talk to the Iranians and get a deal, but the deal had to be based on an understanding that they were not going to continue their malign activity in the world. And it appears that this administration is prepared to sign the deal which will permit them to continue to do all those things. That is bad for our friend and ally, Israel. It is bad for our friends in the Gulf - the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, the Omanis, the Emiratis. It is bad for the US. It impacts our energy markets, but more importantly impacts people all across our country.

Abu Dhabi has blamed the Houthis for the recent attacks on the UAE, not Iran. And the Saudis and the Emiratis are engaging in quiet diplomacy with Tehran. Is this a positive thing for defusing tension?

These are smart leaders, the crown princes of the UAE and Saudi Arabia. When America abandons them for Iran, they are going to do the things that take care of their own people.

Many oil market observers were surprised in September 2019 by how the US reacted to the missile strikes against Saudi Aramco's Abqaiq facility, which the US attributed to Iran. There were some new sanctions imposed, but no military action. What went into that decision at the time?

We responded in a number of ways. We provided more Patriot missile systems for the Saudis, increased intelligence sharing, did the same thing for the Emiratis, and for other countries that were in Iran's direct crosshairs. We increased our [naval] capacity - remember they had put mines on the sides of commercial vessels.

That has been going on for 2½ years, since the JCPOA ended.

That is absolutely true, although that had become much more aggressive as the Israelis had become more aggressive in responding to it as well. We built out a comprehensive response to this thing that frankly, reached a high point with the strike against [Iranian military commander] Qassem Soleimani just three, four months later, 3 January 2020. The whole world noticed, and the Iranians noticed as well, and we began to re-establish the deterrence that we needed.

We did our best to provide tools to these countries to defend themselves. We were not afraid to do it. When the whole world wanted to disassociate themselves from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia after the death of Jamal Khashoggi, we did not do that. We stayed with our friends and partners in the region.

We had Iran in a place where they were going to have to make some really difficult decisions very quickly. Sadly, they hung on, because you had my predecessor [former secretary of state John Kerry] telling them to "Hang on. Help is on the way". And no truer statement could have been made. Hope did end up coming (for Iran). The sanctions today are effectively off. They have not issued the piece of paper to release them. But the Chinese are purchasing crude oil, as you well know, at a staggering volume, and with very little discount.

But they never stopped those purchases.

Oh, yes, they did. They absolutely stopped. Absolutely. We had it. We had Iran exporting fewer than 1mn b/d of crude oil. We absolutely took them down to less than 1mn b/d. So do not say that American sanctions did not work.

They never reached zero.

Nothing ever reaches zero in the world. In crude oil markets, there is stuff moving around that you do not know about. The suggestion in your statement, that they never stopped, it is as if things had not changed. A massive change took place when the Biden administration came in. The US gave up on sanctioning the Iranians, and we are now permitting the Iranians to sell oil at near market prices, a discount of less than 5pc in the market today, at crazy volumes.

We are talking about Ukraine and Russia a lot these days, and there are those in both US parties, including supporters of former president Donald Trump, who argue that the US should not get involved at all. Does it bother you?

It is not partisan, and as a matter of history, it has not been partisan. This idea of avoiding foreign entanglements has been around since the foundation of our country. "America First" policy was very clear about that, we were very restrained. But never in the Trump administration did we suggest that we become isolationist and never suggested that we walk away from this [conflict].

You will hear people saying we should not get involved in this war. Well, we are involved on one level, right? That is going to impact natural gas prices across the world, which should impact a consumer sitting in Chicago in the winter. If you mean American soldiers, I agree with them, we should not get involved in that way. But we should do the best to protect and preserve America and do the right things for America. That means in my judgment, helping Ukrainians be successful in pushing back against Vladimir Putin in southeast Ukraine.

We are three years on from you recognising [Venezuelan opposition leader] Juan Guaido as Venezuela's interim leader. Could you have done anything differently with respect to sanctions on that country?

It took our administration a little too long to really develop our policy with respect to Venezuela and Cuba. I was not the policy executor as the secretary of state until April of 2018. It took us a little too long to get to the right place, and then to develop the execution model around it. So we were not able to fully test our theory of the operation. Even when things are tough, political actors can repress people in ways that we have all seen and know. So it should not surprise us that you do not get instant pudding with respect to the objectives.

Iranian crude production

China imports of crude from Malaysia