Trump’s latest hires and fires rankle Iran hawks as new president suggests nuclear deal
If the president Donald Trump Staff movements are any telling, he may come out of the gate toward Iran in a more diplomatic tone than a combative one.
Trump indicated Thursday evening that he was open to a nuclear deal with Iran.
Asked whether he would support Israel’s staggering of Iran’s nuclear facilities, Trump told reporters, “We’ll have to see. I’ll be meeting with different people over the next couple of days. We’ll see, but hopefully that works out without us having to worry about that.”
“We hope Iran makes a deal. I mean, they’re not making a deal, I think that’s fine too.”
Iran, at least, hopes so. The Tehran Times, an English-language newspaper associated with the regime, was interrogated in A recently condition Whether the shooting of Brian Hook, the architect of the “maximum pressure” policy on Iran during Trump’s first term, could signal a change in [Trump’s] Iran’s policy.
In November, media reported that Hook was managing the transition at the State Department. But Hook was cut from the transfer team shortly after in December, and sources familiar with the move confirmed the move to Fox News Digital.
This week, Trump took it a step further by posting on social media that he would be removed from his position at a research tank owned by the US government.
Trump revoked the security clearances of former National Security Advisor John Bolton, left, and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. (AP Photo/John Locher | Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
“Brian Houck of the Wilson Scholars Center…you’re shooting!” Trump wrote about social truth.
After taking office, Trump removed the former Secretary of State’s government-sponsored security detail Mike Pompeo, A familiar source confirmed to Fox News Digital.
His details were also withdrawn, as were Hook’s, former National Security Advisor John Bolton told CNN.
“You can’t have it [protection] For the rest of your life. Do you want to have a large group of people guarding people for the rest of their lives? I mean, there are risks to everything.”
Trump’s recent situation The Middle East Envoy, Stephen Witkoff, is responsible for addressing concerns about Iran, according to a Financial Times report.
Witkoff recently helped close negotiations on A.J cease-fire Between Hamas and Israel, suggesting that he may test Iran’s willingness to participate at the negotiating table on nuclear issues before intensifying pressure, sources told the Financial Times.
Experts warn that Iran is enriching hundreds of pounds of uranium to the 60% purity threshold, just shy of the 90% purity levels needed to develop a nuclear bomb.
At the same time, the president hired Michael DiMino as deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, a foreign policy expert who said the Middle East “doesn’t really matter” to American interests.
He warns Iran’s weak position could lead it to pursue nuclear weapons.
Dimino is cut from the same cloth as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby, who has argued for the United States to focus military resources on countering China and devote fewer resources to other regions.
DiPino, a former expert on Koch-funded research defense priorities, has strongly called for our recall Resources outside the Middle East.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenini hopes for an agreement with the United States (Office of Iran’s Supreme Leader via AP/File)
“The key question is: Does the Middle East still matter?” DiMino said during a panel last February. “The answer is: Not really, not really for the sake of interests. What I would say is that vital or existential American interests in the Middle East are best considered minimal to non-existent.”
He added: “We are really there to confront Iran and this is really at the request of the Israelis and the Saudis.”
“Iranian power remains overstated and misunderstood. Its economy continues to weaken, and its conventional military is outdated and untested. Tehran simply does not have the financial capital or hard power capabilities to dominate the Middle East or directly threaten core U.S. interests,” he wrote in a 2023 article.
DiMino also argued that the United States did not need to focus resources on an offensive campaign against Houthis amid attacks On shipping lanes in the Red Sea.
“Simply put, there are no existential or vital U.S. interests at stake in Yemen, and very little is at stake for the United States economically in the Red Sea.”
Instead, he argued in 2023 that action to increase aid in Gaza would rid the Houthis of the stated reason for their attacks in the Red Sea, which they said was a way to fight on behalf of Gaza.
“Acting to increase relief shipments to Gaza would not only help alleviate the humanitarian crisis there but would deprive the Houthis of their backed justification for attacks in the Red Sea and provide the group with a de-escalation grant that would also serve to prevent indefinite US involvement in a broader regional war.”
Historically, others in Trump’s foreign policy orbit have struck a more honest tone toward Iran, including the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Israeli Ambassador Mike Huckabee.
Iran has never forgiven Trump, Pompeo, Bolton and Scan for the killing of Qasem Soleimani and other “Max Pressure” moves. (Press office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/anadolu agency/getty images/file)
Rubio has already said he would work to reinstate snapback sanctions that were suspended in the 2015 Iran deal, as indicated in written responses he provided to Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
“The maximum pressure policy must be brought back, and it must be brought back with the help of the rest of the world, and that includes standing with the Iranian people and their aspirations for democracy.” Ukraine, he said recently.
DiPino’s hiring — along with recent staff moves — has caused grumblings from prominent Iran hawks.
Mark Levin, a radio host with Trump’s ear, posted on X several times in opposition to Dimino: “How did this creep get a higher DOD spot?” he asked in one post.
“While DiPino and Witkoff are completely different issues, Witkoff is Trump’s best friend, [it] One Iran expert said: “It seems difficult to dismiss him as, as far as he is concerned, an expert on Iran.
Kasra Arabi, IRGC research director for the United Against Nuclear Iran group, told Fox News Digital.
“Having spent the past four years trying — and failing — to assassinate President Trump, the Ayatollah has now ordered his preachers to cause… [the] Islamic system.”
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“Within the past 48 hours, Ayatollah Khamenei’s entities in Iran’s regime—such as the “Islamic Propaganda Organization”—have been “celebrating some appointments across the broader administration in the way some of former President Biden’s appointments have been praised,” Arabi warned.
