Pompeo says U.S. mission is to avoid war with Iran but measures in place to deter

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Pompeo says U.S. mission is to avoid war with Iran but measures in place to deter

By Humeyra Pamuk

 

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo walks after his meeting with Brazilian Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo at the State Department in Washington, U.S., September 13, 2019. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File Photo

 

(Reuters) - The United States aims to avoid war with Iran and the additional troops ordered to be deployed in the Gulf region are for "deterrence and defence," U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday.

 

Speaking to Fox News Sunday, Pompeo added that he was confident U.S. President Donald Trump would take action if such deterrence measures fail and that this was well understood by the Iranian leadership.

 

"Our mission set is to avoid war," Pompeo said. "You saw what Secretary Esper announced on Friday, we are putting additional forces in the region for the purpose of deterrence and defence," he said.

 

Pompeo said Washington was taking measures to deter Tehran, but he added that Trump would take necessary action if Tehran failed to change its behaviour. "If that deterrence should continue to fail, I am also confident that President Trump would continue to take the actions that are necessary," he said.

 

The United States aims to avoid war with Iran and the additional troops ordered to be deployed in the Gulf region are for "deterrence and defense," U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday. Zachary Goelman reports.

 

Tensions between Washington and Tehran have further escalated after an attack last weekend on Saudi oil facilities that initially disrupted half of the oil production from the kingdom, the world's largest oil exporter, and was blamed on Tehran by the United States and Saudi Arabia.

 

U.S. has slapped more sanctions on Iran, penalising the Iranian Central Bank while the Pentagon said it was sending U.S. troops to bolster Saudi Arabia's air and missile defences after the largest-ever attack on the kingdom's oil facilities.

 

Iran denied involvement in the attack. Yemen's Houthi movement, an Iran-aligned group fighting a Saudi-led alliance in Yemen's civil war, has claimed responsibility.

 

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, speaking to CNN, said the attack on Saudi oil facilities was an attack on the world economic system. He said the United States expects that any country attached to the U.S. dollar system will abide by the sanctions on Iran.

 

Trump pulled the United States out of a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran last year and ramped up sanctions to strangle its oil exports, a mainstay of the Iranian economy.

 

The move dismantled part of former U.S. President Barack Obama's legacy and upset U.S. allies who were party to the agreement, which was designed to restrict Tehran's pathway to a nuclear bomb in exchange for sanctions relief.

 

In recent weeks, Trump had weighed the possibility of easing sanctions on Iran and suggested he could meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who is due to attend the U.N. General Assembly in New York this week. Rouhani has said that Iran, which denies seeking nuclear weapons, would not talk to the United States until Washington lifted sanctions.

 

Jean-Yves Le Drian, France's foreign minister, said on Sunday that his country's main aim at the General Assembly meeting is to de-escalate tensions between the United States and Iran, and that a meeting between Trump and Rouhani was not the top priority.

 

"The meeting between President Trump and President Rouhani is not the No.1 subject. The priority subject is whether we can restart a de-escalation path with the different actors," Le Drian told reporters.

 

France has led a European effort to try and defuse tensions between Washington and Tehran but those efforts have stalled, with Iran reducing its commitments to a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and the United States refusing to ease sanctions that have strangled Iran's economy.

 

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk in New York; Additional reporting by John Irish; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Daniel Wallis)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-09-23

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[Tug]

Why are we even talking about avoiding a war with Iran who pray tell is directly responsible for the hostilities we now find ourselves in hummm

[Tayaout]

He is probably the next to be fired. 

[ChrisY1]

No bombing until after the elections.....and with a little luck, Trump will be toast!

[bristolboy]

1 hour ago, CaptRon2 said:

Well since you are asking In my opinion it would have to be Obama for getting us in a  deal that was so bad, he had to circumvent congress in order to get it done, but  thankfully President Trump had the foresight to withdraw from one of the worst deals in US history. 

Reversing many of the policies and blunders of eight years of the Incompetent Obama administration is of course a monumental undertaking and withdrawing from that terrible deal was a big step in the right direction.

One can assume tat as the Democrat candidates continue to exhibit the behavior associated with crazy people, they will push  the American voters into a situation that will ensure another Trump Term to continue to Make America Great Again!

Even Israeli intelligence said Iran was abiding by the agreement. Trump lied and said it wasn't. 

[CaptRon2]

1 hour ago, bristolboy said:

Even Israeli intelligence said Iran was abiding by the agreement. Trump lied and said it wasn't. 

I would imagine it should have been relatively easy for Iran to stick to one of the worst agreements in US history.

Perhaps if Obama had done a better job in wording this agreement President Trump, while looking out for the welfare of the US, would not have had to withdraw from this agreement and we would not be in this situation. 

So this situation was created by the prior administration and President Trump is just cleaning up another of the many problems the Incompetent prior administration had left for him.

 

[bristolboy]

14 minutes ago, CaptRon2 said:

I would imagine it should have been relatively easy for Iran to stick to one of the worst agreements in US history.

Perhaps if Obama had done a better job in wording this agreement President Trump, while looking out for the welfare of the US, would not have had to withdraw from this agreement and we would not be in this situation. 

So this situation was created by the prior administration and President Trump is just cleaning up another of the many problems the Incompetent prior administration had left for him.

 

If Trump felt his case was so strong, why lie about it?

[stevenl]

45 minutes ago, CaptRon2 said:

I would imagine it should have been relatively easy for Iran to stick to one of the worst agreements in US history.

Perhaps if Obama had done a better job in wording this agreement President Trump, while looking out for the welfare of the US, would not have had to withdraw from this agreement and we would not be in this situation. 

So this situation was created by the prior administration and President Trump is just cleaning up another of the many problems the Incompetent prior administration had left for him.

 

Even if worded differently Trump would have withdrawn. After all it was an agreement from Obama.

[billd766]

47 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

If Trump felt his case was so strong, why lie about it?

It was a reflex action. He lies all the time.

[CaptRon2]

31 minutes ago, stevenl said:

Even if worded differently Trump would have withdrawn. After all it was an agreement from Obama.

Great to see you can make such a great prediction on an event that never happened, once again the contribution of your post is a great reflection of what the opposition is, no substance at all, just empty childish talk.

[stevenl]

3 minutes ago, CaptRon2 said:

Great to see you can make such a great prediction on an event that never happened, once again the contribution of your post is a great reflection of what the opposition is, no substance at all, just empty childish talk.

Looking at his history, similar events happened many times.

 

Once again your contribution is a great reflection of your though process, very limited. Strange to accuse people who don't like Trump to accuse them of childish talk, when Trump talks at the level of an 8-year old. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-language-level-speaking-skills-age-eight-year-old-vocabulary-analysis-a8149926.html

[spidermike007]

As Mattis said "a nation with allies thrives. A nation without allies withers". 

 

Trump is doing a great job of withering America and making the nation significantly less influential, as his tenure evolves. The US has a dismal Iran policy. Basically no policy. 

 

It is rumored he pulled out of the Iran nuclear treaty simply because it was negotiated by Obama. Is that foreign policy, or is that a formerly great nation existing in a vacuum? Why pull out without a solution? He assumed Iran would fold. He assumed China would fold. He assumed Xi would fold. It appears he thinks he is still buying small apartment buildings in NYC. He is grossly incompetent as a negotiator on the world stage. The bankruptcy king is showing his true colors. 

[Morch]

4 hours ago, CaptRon2 said:

I would imagine it should have been relatively easy for Iran to stick to one of the worst agreements in US history.

Perhaps if Obama had done a better job in wording this agreement President Trump, while looking out for the welfare of the US, would not have had to withdraw from this agreement and we would not be in this situation. 

So this situation was created by the prior administration and President Trump is just cleaning up another of the many problems the Incompetent prior administration had left for him.

 

 

What you "imagine" doesn't bear a whole lot of relation to reality. It's also not supported by anything much. Same goes for asserting "one of the worst agreements in US history" - simply saying it doesn't make it so.

 

Each administration leaves some baggage for the next administration to deal with. That's the nature of things. Similarly, the administration following Trump's would have his hands full rectifying damage done. You don't seem to complain, however, on the positive things left over by the Obama administration - more often you simply deny that there were any, which is nonsense.

[billd766]

I find it a little strange that the USA doesn't want a war, but is reinforcing its troops in the Gulf.

 

If they really don't want a war, they would be better withdrawing troops rather than expanding them.

[Scott]

Troll, off-topic posts removed.  

 

[Morch]

12 hours ago, billd766 said:

I find it a little strange that the USA doesn't want a war, but is reinforcing its troops in the Gulf.

 

If they really don't want a war, they would be better withdrawing troops rather than expanding them.

 

I find it not strange at all that some posters would harp on the same nonsense premise without paying attention to detail.

 

Troops sent are sent are to play a defensive role. Pulling out all US troops would simply allow Iran to do as it pleases, and would almost certainly not contribute much to regional stability. The idea that it's only USA presence and involvement that causes strife in the ME is a fantasy, at best.