Iran’s days of troublemaking in the Middle East may be coming to an end sooner rather than later, if the United States gets its way.
For months, the Persian nation’s military has been conducting dastardly, terror-adjacent attacks on the all-important oil infrastructure in the region. Several tankers have found themselves on the receiving end of explosive attacks using magnetic mines in the Strait of Hormuz, along with a bevy of drone strikes on key Saudi Arabian transport and manufacturing sites.
The latest aerial attack has even prompted the United States to make plans to deploy hundreds of troops and a battery of missile defense systems to the Kingdom in hopes of protecting one of the world’s most prominent producers of oil.
But Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insists that war with the Iranian regime is not in the cards, despite the military maneuver.
“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 defense,” 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 behavior. “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 sentiment falls in line nicely with similar, previous statements made by Donald Trump over the course of the last few weeks.
Furthermore, this commitment to deterring war as opposed to fomenting it jibes with the President’s recent firing of John Bolton from his national security adviser role, as Bolton was known in Washington circles as an unmitigated war-hawk with Iran in his sights.
