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News ID: 56426
Publish Date : 17 August 2018 - 22:10

U.S. Forms ‘Iran Action Group’

WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced a new high-level team on Thursday to focus U.S. and international efforts to increase diplomatic and economic pressure on Iran.
The Iran Action Group will drive Washington's "maximum pressure" strategy, including potentially sanctioning other countries which trade with the country.
The group will be headed by Brian Hook as the State Department's Special Representative for Iran.
Hook, currently director of policy planning at the State Department, was in charge of the failed effort to get support from U.S. allies for Washington's decision in May to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal.
The U.S. has laid out a long list of activities it demands Tehran changes, including halting support for the Syrian government and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, shutting down its nuclear development program, and freeing detained Americans.
"We want to be closely synchronized with our allies and partners around the world," Hook said.
Hook said that Washington is stepping up its effort to get other countries to fall in line with economic pressure on Tehran, including the crackdown on Iran's oil trade, financial sector and shipping industry announced for early November.
"Our goal is to reduce every country's import of Iranian oil to zero by November 4."
"We are prepared to impose secondary sanctions on other governments that continue this sort of trade with Iran."
Critics of the administration's approach suggested that Hook's new position was a sign the U.S. was adopting a policy of regime change in Iran, something that Pompeo and other officials have denied.
Some critics noted that the creation of the Iran Action Group was announced during the 65th anniversary of the five-day period in 1953 in which former Iranian Prime Minister Muhammad Mosaddeq was overthrown in a U.S.- and British-backed coup.
Hook said the timing was "pure coincidence" and rejected comparisons between the Iran group and an earlier State Department initiative known as the "Future of Iraq Project" that was undertaken when U.S. policy was to promote the downfall of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.