CIA Head: I Warned Iran's Revolutionary Guards Over Iraq

The director of the CIA has said that he sent a letter to influential Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani earlier this year, warning him that the United States would respond if Iran-backed forces operating in Iraq attacked its interests in the country. "Iranians' effort to be the hegemonic power throughout the Middle East continues to increase," Mike Pompeo said at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in the city of Simi Valley, California, on December 2. Pompeo added that Soleimani "refused to open" his letter. Major General Soleimani is a hard-line conservative leader of the Quds Force, a division of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps that is responsible for its foreign operations. (Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute via AP)