Pompeo: Ayatollah Khamenei Must Be Held Accountable for the Suffering of the Yemeni People

On Thursday, July 7, the U.S. Secretary of State accused Iran of exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in Yemen by supporting Houthi rebels. Mike Pompeo has held Ayatollah Khamenei responsible for this crisis. In a message on Twitter, Pompeo wrote: "Iran's support for the Houthis in Yemen not only enables them to attack Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates but also worsens the already dire humanitarian conditions in Yemen." The Houthi rebels, who are engaged in a war against an international military coalition led by Saudi Arabia, have repeatedly targeted Riyadh and other cities in Saudi Arabia with their missiles. Both Saudi Arabia and the U.S. assert that Iran has provided these missiles to the Houthis, a claim that Iranian officials have consistently denied. However, Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, in a confidential letter to the Security Council, stated that an examination of the remnants of missiles fired by the Houthis at Saudi Arabia since last summer shows that their components were manufactured in Iran, although the UN cannot determine when they were transferred to Yemen. In his tweet, Pompeo targeted the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, stating: "Ayatollah Khamenei must be held accountable for destabilizing the security of the Gulf [Persian Gulf] and prolonging the suffering of the Yemeni people." The three-year war in Yemen has turned into a deep humanitarian crisis, which has intensified with the coalition's military assault on the port of Hodeidah, a key area for importing goods to Yemen and playing a significant role in delivering humanitarian aid to civilians. However, Riyadh has also accused the Houthi rebels of receiving weapons from Iran through this port. The U.S. has stated that one of its main conditions for reaching a new nuclear agreement with Iran is to stop the production of ballistic missiles. Another condition from Washington is that Iran must end its military support for the Houthi rebels and cooperate for a political peace in Yemen. Last week, Pompeo also accused the Islamic Republic of wasting the national wealth of the country on proxy wars, referring to the economic turmoil in Iran. He also stated in a tweet on Wednesday that the recent protests and strikes in Iran are the result of the Islamic Republic's "corruption" and "injustice," claiming that the Iranian people are fed up with it all. Tehran and several other major cities in Iran, including Tabriz, Isfahan, and Kermanshah, witnessed protests and strikes by merchants this week against the skyrocketing exchange rates. Some of the protesters' slogans also targeted the leaders of the Islamic Republic and the government as a whole. In response to the U.S. Secretary of State's remarks, his Iranian counterpart stated in a statement that it is the people of the United States who are "fed up with the corruption, injustice, and incompetence of their leaders, and the world hears their voices." Mohammad Javad Zarif, in the statement published on Thursday, said: "The United States is wasting its people's resources, whether through adventurism in Iraq and Afghanistan, blindly supporting Israel and other terrorist-supporting regimes, or by expanding its useless nuclear weapons."