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Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tore into Tehran’s ruling class on Fox News’ The Story on December 31, 2025, bluntly saying the ayatollah and his henchmen have “mostly ruined” Iran’s economy. He made clear that the economic pain Iranians are feeling is the direct result of decades of kleptocratic rule combined with decisive U.S. pressure designed to hold the regime accountable.
Pompeo credited the Trump administration’s maximum-pressure campaign with inflicting real damage on the regime’s finances and capacity to project power abroad. That pressure, he argued, has constrained the ayatollah’s ability to bankroll terror and regional chaos while exposing the corruption at the heart of the clerical state.
Conservative Americans should not feel guilty about calling out the Iranian leadership; they are not a victimless, abstract entity but a corrupt kleptocracy that has plundered its people’s future. Observers have repeatedly documented how regime elites divert oil revenues and public resources into secret slush funds and lavish living, even as ordinary Iranians go hungry and jobless.
The human cost of the regime’s choices is plain to see: rampant inflation, a collapsing currency, and street protests that have broken out across the country as families struggle to feed themselves. These are not simply the side effects of sanctions; they are the logical result of a ruling class that prioritizes foreign adventurism and enrichment of cronies over the welfare of its citizens.
And yes, America’s pressure has real geopolitical and market effects too. When waivers on Iranian oil exports were ended and sanctions tightened, global energy markets reacted — a reminder that standing up to tyrants carries short-term costs but long-term strategic gains for peace and stability.
Pompeo’s point was not revenge; it was realism and opportunity — the United States can simultaneously back the Iranian people and deny the regime the resources to fund terror. He’s pushed for expanding Farsi-language broadcasts and information operations to give ordinary Iranians the truth about their rulers, because free information undermines tyrants faster than any speech in Washington.
Patriots should applaud a strategy that refuses to normalize with a regime that steals from its people and exports violence abroad. The choice for American leaders is simple: keep the pressure until Tehran changes behavior, or pay the price later with more troops, more wars, and more American blood; conservatives know which path keeps our nation safer and the world freer.
