Iran Press/ America: The United States intends to maintain a policy of “maximum pressure” to isolate Iran, while not ruling out a military strike if that is what is required “to keep Americans safe," US Secretary of State clarified in an interview with the National.
Stressing that a “policy of appeasement” with Iran would be detrimental Mike Pompeo also said assessing US troop levels in the region is based on “the threats of today, not twenty years ago”.
He said US President Donald Trump’s national security and foreign policy strategy is “realistic, it recognizes the facts on the ground, it doesn’t pretend… it acknowledges that if we get it right in America if we protect American citizens, we can be a force for good all across the world”.
When it comes to the Middle East, Pompeo claimed that strategy “recognizes a couple of central facts, first that the primary instigator of instability in the region is in fact of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and second that Israel could be a great partner for the Persian Gulf states”.
On Israel and despite UN Security Council resolutions, Pompeo said his country acknowledged realities on the ground “and we said not every settlement is per se illegal. These are just facts; the world knows this”.
He added: “When you see a policy and American policy that recognizes the threat as from Iran, when you recognize that Israel's effective democracy that is a force for good in the region, you see, countries recognize this through the Abraham Accords mechanism and say: ‘We want to be at peace with Israel.’
"I think the Palestinian people can see that. And so you know, the choices the Palestinian leadership makes, I think, will reflect that central understanding,” he said.
On Iran, Mr. Pompeo claimed that the US has built “an enormous coalition that understood the threat from Iran and… we have also ensured that we establish real deterrence. We built out an effort to defeat the so-called caliphate which was sitting in ISIS which gave space to the Iranians inside of Syria.
"We've tried our best to deliver good outcomes for the Iraqi people. So in each nation, we had a set of policies that further continued to recognize that the isolation of Iran was the right approach," he said.
Last week, media reports suggested that Trump was considering military action in Iran, but was dissuaded by senior US officials, including Pompeo.
Asked whether a strike was being considered, Pompeo succinctly said: “The President of the United States always retains the right to do what's needed to ensure that Americans are safe. It's been our policy for four years. It'll be our policy, so long as we have the responsibility to keep America protected.”
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