Intel: Why the Trump administration suddenly cares about Iran’s poor environmental record

After withdrawing from the Paris climate pact and gutting the EPA, the Donald Trump administration is suddenly obsessed with the sorry state of Iran’s environment.

The State Department’s hawkish Iran Action Group devotes an entire chapter to the topic in its new report on the “outlaw regime,” including environmental exploitation by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Secretary of State Mike Pompeo quipped that Tehran is “more concerned with heavy water than drinking water” during a Sept. 25 appearance at the United Against Nuclear Iran summit in New York.

The rhetoric has been roundly mocked by skeptics of the administration’s “green” credentials, but it makes perfect sense, as the administration seeks as many avenues as possible for undermining the regime.

“Environmental activism has increasingly emerged as a mostly non-political, non-factional outlet for dissent in recent years, which the IRGC in particular has cracked down on,” Al-Monitor’s Iran Pulse editor Mohammad Shabani explained.