http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2018/07/23/pompeo-iranians-tired-mafia-regimes-fake-news/
United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addressed some of the most powerful members of Iran's expatriate community on Sunday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, during which he said, "Iranians should not have to flee their homeland to find a better life" and countered the "fake news" narrative of Iran's regime. ...
Next year will mark the 40th anniversary of the Iranian regime's seizure of power from Iran's last Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Pompeo noted that the so-called "fruits from that Revolution have been bitter."
Pompeo stated that subsidies provided to the regime's cronies have provided the average Hezbollah combatant with roughly two to three times the monthly salary of what the average firefighter makes in Iran today.
"Regime mismanagement has led to the rial plummeting in value," Pompeo said. "A third of Iranian youth are unemployed and a third of Iranians live below the poverty line. The bitter irony of the economic situation in Iran is that the regime lines its own pockets while its people cry out for jobs, reform, and opportunity."
Thousands of Iranians have taken to the streets of Iran, particularly in cities outside of the nation's capital city, to protest against inflation. Shouts of "Death to the dictator!" and "Death to Rouhani" were prominent throughout at least eight cities where protests took place against the regime.
"The bitter irony of the economic situation in Iran is that the regime lines its own pockets while its people cry out for jobs, reform, and opportunity," Pompeo said. He pointed out that "the Iranian economy is going great - but only if you're a politically connected member of the elite." ...
Pompeo noted on Sunday that Seddiq Ardeshir Larijani, the head of Iran's Judiciary, has a net worth of $300 million dollars "from embezzling public funds into his bank account." The Trump administration sanctioned Larijani in January for human rights abuses and corruption.
America's top diplomat further noted that "former IRGC officer and Minister of the Interior Sadeq Mahsouli is nicknamed 'the Billionaire General' [and went from being a poor IRGC officer at the end of the Iran-Iraq war to being worth billions of dollars" by winning "lucrative construction and oil trading contracts from businesses associated with the IRGC. Being an old college buddy of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad just might have had something to do with it."
Pompeo also noted that Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has his own personal, off-the-books hedge fund called the Setad, which is worth $95 billion dollars.
"Call me crazy, but I'm a little skeptical that a thieving thug under international sanctions is the right man to be Iran's highest-ranking judicial official," Pompeo said.
He said America is not afraid to "spread our message on the airwaves and online inside Iran. For forty years the Iranian people have heard from their leaders that America is the Great Satan. We do not believe they are interested in hearing that fake news any longer. The level of corruption and wealth among regime leaders shows that Iran is run by something that resembles the mafia more than a government," he said. ...
The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted. ~ D.H. Lawrence
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