“There’s a huge gap between the objectives that have been laid out and the means the administration has so far been willing to employ,” said former envoy Dennis Ross, who has advised Republican and Democratic presidents on the Middle East. “At some point, either you revise the objectives or you embrace new means.”<doc-sep>WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s explosive twitter threat to Iran’s leader comes as his administration is ratcheting up a pressure campaign on the Islamic republic that many suspect is aimed at regime change. No one is predicting imminent war. But Trump’s bellicose, all-caps challenge addressed to President Hassan Rouhani followed a speech by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in which he accused Iran’s leadership of massive corruption and widespread rights abuses and urged Iranians to rise up in protest. Trump’s tweet doesn’t appear to have been prompted by any notable shift in rhetoric from Iran. Both the tweet and the speech landed less than two weeks before the administration will begin re-imposing sanctions on Iran that had been lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal. In the meantime, the U.S. is stepping up Farsi-language outreach that is intended to support Iranians demonstrating against the policies of their government. Trump’s tweet doesn’t appear to have been prompted by any notable shift in rhetoric from Iran. It could have been an impulsive reaction to reports from Tehran quoting Rouhani as giving the U.S. an oft-repeated reminder that conflict with Iran would be “the mother of all wars.” Yet animosity directed at the Iranian leadership is an established part of the administration’s broader foreign policy. Iran has dismissed Trump’s late Sunday message — “NEVER EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKE OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE” — as a “passive reaction” to Rouhani. But, Tehran was already aware of what was coming from the administration as consequences of Trump’s May withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear accord take shape. As Pompeo noted in his speech to Iranian-Americans and others in California late Sunday, the centerpiece of those consequences will be the re-imposition of U.S. economic sanctions; the first batch will go back into force on Aug. 4 targeting the Iranian automotive sector and trade in gold and other metals. A more significant set of sanctions that will hit Iran’s oil industry and central bank by punishing countries and companies that do business with them will resume on Nov. 4. “Right now, the United States is undertaking a diplomatic and financial pressure campaign to cut off the funds that the regime uses to enrich itself and support death and destruction,” Pompeo said in his speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley. “We have an obligation to put maximum pressure on the regime’s ability to generate and move money, and we will do so. Pompeo also slammed Iran’s political, judicial and military officials, accusing several by name of participating in rampant corruption, and called its religious leaders “hypocritical holy men” who amassed wealth while allowing their people to suffer. He said the government has “heartlessly repressed its own people’s human rights, dignity and fundamental freedoms,” and he hailed the “proud Iranian people (for) not staying silent about their government’s many abuses.” “The United States under President Trump will not stay silent either,” he said. Trump has a history of firing off heated tweets that seem to quickly escalate long-standing disputes with leaders of nations at odds with the U.S. He was right. True to form, Trump did not stay silent. But the White House blamed Rouhani for inciting the war of words with his comment that “America must understand well that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace and war with Iran is the mother of all wars.” “WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!,” Trump wrote. Reaction from Congress, particularly Democrats, was swift and critical. Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, acknowledged that Iran’s terrorist activities in the Middle East pose a threat but suggested it wouldn’t be solved through a tweet from Trump. “Sadly, after pulling us out of the nuclear deal with Europe and Iran, there doesn’t seem to be strategy for how to move forward to fight Iran’s activities,” she said. And Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, the former Democratic vice presidential candidate, called the Twitter blast from the White House “another warning sign that Trump is blundering toward war with Iran.” Trump’s National Security Council pushed back: “Our differences are with the Iranian regime’s actions and, in particular, with the actions of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, not the Iranian people. The Trump administration’s Iran policy seeks to address the totality of these threats and malign activities and to bring about a change in the Iranian regime’s behavior.” “If anybody’s inciting anything, look no further than to Iran,” said White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said. She added that Trump has been “very clear about what he’s not going to allow to take place.” Trump has a history of firing off heated tweets that seem to quickly escalate long-standing disputes with leaders of nations at odds with the U.S. In the case of North Korea, the verbal war cooled quickly and gradually led to the high-profile summit and denuclearization talks. Still there has been little tangible progress in a global push to rid North Korea of its nuclear weapons program since the historic Trump-Kim Jong Un summit on June 12. Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, David Rising in Dubai, Aron Heller in Jerusalem and Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul contributed to this report.<doc-sep>US President Donald J. Trump delivers his first address to a joint session of Congress from the floor of the House of Representatives in Washington, DC, USA, 28 February 2017. / AFP / EPA POOL / JIM LO SCALZO (Photo credit should read JIM LO SCALZO/AFP/Getty Images) TOPSHOT - A vendor picks up a 100 yuan note above a newspaper featuring a photo of US president-elect Donald Trump, at a news stand in Beijing on November 10, 2016. The world's second-largest economy is US president-elect Donald Trump's designated bogeyman, threatening it on the campaign trail with tariffs for stealing American jobs, but analysts say US protectionism could create opportunities for Beijing. / AFP / GREG BAKER (Photo credit should read GREG BAKER/AFP/Getty Images) US President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron hold a joint press conference at the White House in Washington, DC, on April 24, 2018. (Photo by LUDOVIC MARIN / AFP) (Photo credit should read LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP/Getty Images) SAN FRANCISCO, CA - FEBRUARY 08: Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau looks on before speaking to members of the media during a visit to AppDirect on February 8, 2018 in San Francisco, California. Trudeau is visiting several cities in the U.S. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) US President Donald Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin attend a joint press conference after a meeting at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, on July 16, 2018. (Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP) (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images) President Donald Trump talks on the phone aboard Air Force One during a flight to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to address a joint gathering of House and Senate Republicans, Thursday, January 26, 2017. This was the Presidentâs first Trip aboard Air Force One. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead) (CNN) — First, an admission: I have no idea why President Donald Trump tweeted the following at 11:24 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday night: “To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!” The likely reasons, as I see them: Mired in a downward spiral in regard to the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, Trump was trying to DRAMATICALLY CHANGE THE SUBJECT. He saw Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s comments that a war with Iran would be the “ mother of all wars ” and DECIDED TO SEND A MESSAGE LOUD AND CLEAR. Many people believe the former option to be the more likely. Maybe. Knowing Trump’s thin skinned-ness, however, I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that someone showed him Rouhani’s quote – or, even more likely, he saw it on cable TV – and he lashed out. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders explained it this way in Monday’s press briefing: “The President’s been, I think, pretty strong since day one in his language toward Iran. He was responding to comments made from them, and he’s going to continue to focus on the safety and security of American people.” Regardless of why Trump did it, here’s *what* he did: Taunted an aspiring nuclear power with some of the harshest words we’ve heard from an American president. Trump’s thinking in regard to Iran is almost entirely informed by how he handled “negotiations” with North Korea. Trump called North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un “Little Rocket Man” and made clear that America’s “nuclear button” was far larger than North Korea’s. Fears ran rampant that Trump was tweeting the US into a war on the Korean peninsula. Then, somehow, Kim decided that a summit with Trump would make sense – and the two sat down in Singapore last month, a meeting that Trump claimed had gone terrifically. If it worked on Kim, Trump seems to believe, it will work on Rouhani. And it might! (To be clear: The summit “worked” in the sense it happened; denuclearization by the North Koreans is far from a done deal.) But Twitter diplomacy – which is one of the many things that Trump has ushered in as President – isn’t a tried-and-true approach to geopolitics. Especially since it’s not entirely clear whether Trump actually checked with anyone in his administration before issuing the threat again Iran. “The President consults with his national security team on a daily basis,” Sanders said earlier Monday when asked directly whether Trump had run his tweet by any of the relevant parties in his administration. You would think that if Trump had, in fact, checked with his national security team, Sanders would have been able to answer the question a little (or a lot) less vaguely. For Trump allies, this is all fine. Trump was elected as someone who knew how to deal with bullies and who wasn’t afraid to do things very differently than the way they had been done in the past. It worked with Kim, they will note. Who’s to say it won’t work with Rouhani too? The problem is, of course, what if it doesn’t work? What if Rouhani doesn’t react like Kim? What is he takes this threat as literal – and makes moves to counter it? Diplomacy isn’t a one-way street. Nor, typically, does a one-size-fits-all approach usually work. The question is whether Trump has any speed except PEDAL TO THE METAL AT ALL TIMES. He’s shown that gun-it style isn’t without its merits in regards North Korea. But can he shift gears if it doesn’t work as well with Iran? Does he understand – or care about – the complexities inherent in this sort of diplomacy? Or has he rendered those complexities irrelevant? All of it comes back to the question that sits at the heart of Trump’s presidency: Is he the exception or is he the new rule? Has he fundamentally altered the way nations negotiate – in addition to realigning the Republican Party and conducting an all-out assault on fact? Trump clearly believes he has – or he simply doesn’t know any other way to be.<doc-sep>USA TODAY President Donald Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani exchanged angry threats as Washington prepares to reimpose economic sanctions. Trump's incoherent approach to Iran President Donald Trump is once again issuing bombastic threats of war, this time against Iran. This administration’s total lack of a coherent approach to Iran has created a strategic vacuum, wherein U.S. policy is reduced to the hackneyed regime change rhetoric of neoconservatives and the primal screams of an undisciplined, callow president. On Sunday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, taking note of an increasingly antagonistic Trump administration, said America should know that "peace with Iran is the mother of all peace and war with Iran is the mother of all wars.” In response, Trump tweeted: “NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED.” That seems a bit of an overreaction, but it is even stranger in the context of Trump’s tweets from 2013, in which he lambasted President Barack Obama for planning to go to war against Iran “to save face” and “to show how tough he is.” And let’s not forget that as president elect, Trump promised in late 2016 to “stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about.” Trump’s Twitter threat came just as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was giving a speech Sunday in California aimed at rallying the Iranian people and diaspora to undermine the regime in Tehran. Pompeo railed against the Iranian regime’s tyranny and rights abuses, offering sympathy and support for those who seek to overthrow it. More:Don't trust Benjamin Netanyahu on claims about Iran's nuclear program The notion that the Trump administration cares one whit about democracy and human rights in Iran is so transparently ludicrous as to hardly even require refutation. After all, the White House is enthusiastically supporting the authoritarian regime in Saudi Arabia, a tyranny much worse than the one in Iran and which is committing war crimes in Yemen with U.S. help. Contrary to Pompeo’s feigned concern for the welfare of the citizens of Iran, the administration’s approach harms, rather than helps, the Iranian people. The truth is that Trump’s threat lacks credibility. A U.S. attack would provoke a wider regional war that would be an order of magnitude worse than what we saw in Iraq. The Trump administration’s hostility toward Iran is irrational. Backing out of the nuclear deal not only created a proliferation risk in Iran, it also locked the White House in a policy of confrontation. The result has been confusion, needless antagonism and a dangerous risk of stumbling into yet another costly war in the Middle East. John Glaser is director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. Follow him on Twitter: @jwcglaser Trump is playing the tough guy for his base One has to wonder exactly what President Donald Trump's motives are. The United States should never allow threats from a foreign adversary. No one can argue the fact that in order for America to remain strong, we should defend our nation, not only physically but politically as well. Taking to Twitter to do so, however, is not the best way of handling a potentially devastating situation with a nation that has nuclear capabilities. More:Maria Butina is the 'spy' the Trump administration asked for: Talker Don't be confused — Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson are not journalists: Talker Trump is coming off of a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in which much of the news media and opposition are accusing him of being "soft." Some have gone as far as saying that he acted cowardly and even treasonous on the world stage in Helsinki. Trump needs to prove otherwise, and while something seems to be deterring him from showing strength in the presence of Putin, he has always been quite willing to do so when it comes to Islamic nations. When the opportunity presented itself, to defend America against a verbal threat from Iran, Trump jumped at the opportunity, knowing very well that it would both please his base and show that he still has the guts to stand up to an adversary (as long as it's not Russia). As special counsel Robert Mueller's probe digs its claws into Trump's campaign officials — and appears to be working its way into his inner circle — it will not come as a surprise to me if he uses the prospects of war to try to distract America from what Mueller may end up finding. War has been a useful tool for previous presidents who have slipped in approval, as well as those who needed to distract the media from problems at home. Keep an eye on what happens with Iran as Mueller's investigation continues. Does Trump use war to rile up his base while also attempting to drown out news coverage of his possible Russian ties? Only time will tell. Ed Krassenstein is the co-founder of HillReporter.com. You can contact him at edkrassenstein.com. Follow him on Twitter: @EdKrassen What our readers are saying President Donald Trump seems not to be able to track what he says. He threatened North Korean leader Kim Jong Un with “fire and fury” in the past, and that threat came to nothing but muddled denuclearization talks. Now, he is trading threats with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warning of consequences "the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered.” Is there any reason for Rouhani to take this threat any more seriously than the one made against North Korea? It appears Trump acts in the spur of the moment without screening his thoughts or controlling his anger. President Theodore Roosevelt said “speak softly and carry a big stick,” but Trump stomps around making big noises doing nothing. Americans should be grateful that he hasn’t gotten us into a war, yet. But it is becoming increasingly clear that he lacks any credibility with our allies or other foreign powers. George Magakis; Norristown, Pa. Comments are edited for clarity and grammar: Finally, a president who has the guts to say enough is enough.<doc-sep>
Iran's President Hasan Rouhani delivers a speech after his swearing-in ceremony for the second term in office, at the parliament in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Aug. 5, 2017. Rouhani, 68, a moderate cleric who secured re-election on May 19, promised that his country will pursue a "path of coexistence and interaction with the world." Donald Trump and Iran: the one thing to know WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 09: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses a rally against the Iran nuclear deal on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol September 9, 2015 in Washington, DC. Thousands of people gathered for the rally, organized by the Tea Party Patriots, which featured conservative pundits and politicians. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Secretary Pompeo delivers remarks on "Supporting Iranian Voices", at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Center for Public Affairs. An Iranian woman walks past a mural depicting the Statue of Liberty with a dead face, painted on the wall of the former US embassy in the capital Tehran on August 7, 2018 - US President Donald Trump warned countries against doing business with Iran today as he hailed the "most biting sanctions ever imposed", triggering a mix of anger, fear and defiance in Tehran. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP) (Photo credit should read ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images) (CNN) — President Donald Trump issued a furious, all-caps challenge to the Iranian regime late Sunday night, warning that any threats to the US would be met with unspecified dire consequences. The tirade signaled an immediate escalation of tensions between Washington and Tehran, and capped a weekend of angry tweets by the President on the Russia investigation and the legal problems facing his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen. “To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE,” Trump tweeted after returning to the White House from a weekend at his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey. “WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!” Trump’s comments were in response to earlier remarks by Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, who warned the US that war with Tehran would be the “mother of all wars.” Rouhani warned Trump not to “play with the lion’s tail, because you will regret it eternally.” He also held out the possibility of a peaceful relationship with the US, in remarks reported by Iranian state media. On Monday, a senior officer in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Commander General Gholam Hossein Gheibparvar, described Trump’s remarks as “psychological warfare,” the semi-official ISNA news agency reported. Even before Trump’s tweet, his administration had already intensified the rhetoric against the regime. In a blistering speech earlier Sunday evening, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo likened the Iranian regime to the mafia, accusing the clerics that rule the country of enriching themselves and funding terrorism at the expense of ordinary Iranians. “To the regime, prosperity, security, and freedom for the Iranian people are acceptable casualties in the march to fulfill the Revolution,” Pompeo said in remarks delivered at the Ronald Reagan National Library in Simi Valley, California. “The level of corruption and wealth among regime leaders shows that Iran is run by something that resembles the mafia more than a government.” Among the most startling allegations leveled by Pompeo, who was CIA director before becoming secretary of state, was that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has a personal hedge fund worth $95 billion. Strong language Trump’s broadside against Rouhani had echoes of his approach to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, whom he taunted and threatened on social media before agreeing to a summit. Yet even by Trump’s standards, the language was harsh, and surprised many Middle East watchers. “We’ve seen a lot of very bellicose words from Mr. Trump in the past, but this tweet … I think it takes it to a new level,” said CNN military analyst Rick Francona. “This seems to be a little out of character and really a little alarming for many people,” said Francona, a former US Air Force intelligence officer who worked in the Middle East and retired as a lieutenant colonel.