The Trump administration has launched an offensive of speeches and online communications meant to foment unrest and help pressure Iran to end its nuclear program and its regional presence, U.S. officials familiar with the matter said, Reuters reported on Sunday.

More than half a dozen current and former officials said the campaign, supported by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton, is meant to work in concert with U.S. President Donald Trump’s push to economically throttle Iran by re-imposing tough sanctions. The drive has intensified since Trump withdrew on May 8 from a 2015 seven-nation nuclear pact.

The current and former officials said the campaign paints Iranian leaders in a harsh light, at times using information that is exaggerated or contradicts other official pronouncements, including comments by previous administrations.

The White House declined comment on the campaign. The State Department also declined to comment on the campaign specifically, including on Pompeo’s role.

A review of the State Department’s Farsi-language Twitter account and its ShareAmerica website - which describes itself as a platform to spark debate on democracy and other issues - shows a number of posts critical of Tehran over the last month.

More than half a dozen current and former officials said the campaign, supported by Pompeo and Bolton, is meant to work in concert with Trump’s push to economically throttle Iran by re-imposing tough sanctions

In social media posts and speeches, Pompeo himself also appeals directly to Iranians, the Iranian diaspora and a global audience.

Pompeo was scheduled to give a speech on Sunday titled “Supporting Iranian Voices” in California and meet Iranian Americans, many of whom fled Iran when Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was toppled.

“Let me be clear, we are not seeking regime change. We are seeking changes in the Iranian government’s behavior,” a State Department official claimed in response to questions from Reuters.

“We know we are driving Iran to make some hard choices,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. 

In a May 21 speech in Washington, Pompeo said Iranian leaders refused to spend on their people funds freed by the nuclear deal, using it instead for proxy wars and corruption.

The current and former officials said the campaign paints Iranian leaders in a harsh light, at times using information that is exaggerated or contradicts other official pronouncements, including comments by previous administrations.

By contrast, in March testimony before a U.S. Senate committee, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency director, Robert Ashley, said social and economic expenditures remained Tehran’s near-term priority despite some spending on security forces.

Pompeo also accused “Iran-sponsored Shia militia groups and terrorists” of infiltrating Iraqi security forces and jeopardizing Iraq’s sovereignty throughout the period of the nuclear agreement.

While opponents accuse the Iran-backed Iraqi militias of human rights abuses against civilians, which the groups deny, the militias fought ISIS militants and helped keep them from overrunning Iraq in 2014 after Iraq’s army collapsed. They then aided the U.S.-backed offensives that liberated ISIS-held territory and some units are being incorporated into Iraqi security forces.

The State Department official acknowledged that the militias, known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, are by law part of Iraq’s security forces and played a role in countering Daesh in 2014.

SP/PA