The Trump administration is "not going to do a military exercise inside Iran" in order to precipitate a regime change, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, Axios reported on Sunday.
Pompeo was speaking in a closed-door meeting recently with about 15 Iranian-American community leaders in Dallas, Axios said, relying on three sources who were in the room.
Pompeo also distanced the administration from the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), an anti-regime organization that the U.S. once designated as a terrorist group and which some in the room said are worse than the current regime in Tehran.
He acknowledged that National Security Adviser John Bolton and Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani have friendly ties with the controversial group, but emphasized that neither he nor Trump did.
Pompeo mostly used euphemism to talk about the administration's stance on Iran and was sparse with details, according to the sources in the room.
The secretary of state also said the Trump administration would have handled the 2009 Green Movement uprising against the regime very differently than the Obama administration did, but refused to describe how.
The State Department did not respond to requests for comment about the report.
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