Ex-Envoy Reportedly Leading Trump’s State Dept. Transition Indicates Return of ‘Maximum Pressure’ Against Iran

The man reportedly leading the transition team for the incoming Trump administration’s State Department has indicated that US policy will return to a campaign of maximum pressure against Iran when President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House in January.

During an interview with CNN on Thursday, Brian Hook, who served as Trump’s special envoy for Iran during the president-elect’s first term in office, argued that the US should establish a firm and aggressive posture toward the Iranian regime. Hook claimed that efforts to accommodate Iran, through actions such as easing sanctions, only accelerate instability in the Middle East. 

“President Trump understands that the chief driver of instability in today’s Middle East is the Iranian regime, and the Gulf is, I think, the most economically dynamic and culturally vibrant region in the world today,” Hook said, referring to the Arab countries on the Persian Gulf. “And this sort of extremism and revolutionary ideology that the Iranian regime exports is one of the obstacles, right, to continuing on this good path.”

Hook, who according to CNN is expected to lead Trump’s transition team at the State Department, suggested that American weakness toward Iran emboldens other nations to strengthen their ties to the regime.

“And when the United States decides to seek accommodations with Iran, it then creates the space for other countries to do the same,” Hook said. 

For years, US intelligence agencies have called Iran the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism.

Hook added that countries “on the front lines of Iranian aggression” are among the most interest in deterring the threats that the regime poses. However, he emphasized that Trump”“has no interest” in toppling and replacing Iranian leadership.

“The future of Iran will be decided by the Iranian people,” Hook asserted. 

The former State Department official reiterated that Trump plans to “isolate Iran diplomatically and weaken them economically” in an effort to neuter the regime’s capability to “destabilize Israel” and the broader region through the funding of terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

When Trump was president, his administration pursued what became known as a policy of exerting “maximum pressure” on the regime, primarily through sanctions.

Harsh US sanctions levied on Iran under the Trump administration crippled the Iranian economy and led its foreign exchange reserves to plummet. Trump and his Republican supporters in the US Congress have criticized the Biden administration for renewing billions of dollars in US sanctions waivers, which had the effect of unlocking frozen funds and allowing the country to access previously inaccessible hard currency. Critics argue that Iran likely used these funds to provide resources for Hamas and Hezbollah to wage new terrorist campaigns against the Jewish state, including the brutal Oct. 7 massacres throughout southern Israel perpetrated by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists.

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