Washington 0
12 December 2019

In remarks regarding “the success of the economic pressure pillar of our Iran strategy”, the U.S. Special Representative for Iran, Brian Hook, contended that “Iran’s leaders – and they alone – bear responsibility for how they choose to spend the Iranian people’s money and for the state of their nation’s economy and the stagnation of the Iranian people’s livelihoods that result”. “Our economic pressure”, he added, “is holding this regime accountable to its people and for its actions. With the ultimate objective of creating the conditions for negotiations, our pressure is exposing this regime’s corruption, revealing its gross mismanagement and holding accountable those privileged insiders who have for decades profited on the backs of the proud Iranian people”. Hook went on to assert that “only once we seriously and credibly threaten this regime’s economic interests, as we are now doing for the first time, can we build the leverage needed for meaningful negotiations. This regime will not change its behaviour or stop weaponising the Iranian economy to advance its expansionism absent pressure from the U.S”. “Now is not the time to make accommodations for Tehran”, Hook posited. “We have done that for 40 years without success. Now is the time to challenge its behaviour”.

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