Washington 0
19 June 2019

Referring to the tanker incident in the Gulf of Oman, Secretary of State Pompeo suggested that Iran was “attempting to use these actions to convince the world that the U.S. should release that [economic] pressure… and so that they can get back to the kind of behaviour that they’ve engaged in for 40 years”. He added that “I regret it’s the case that some are blaming the administration for the escalation when we have spent all of our energy … working to create a situation where deterrence was sufficient so this would not escalate and we wouldn’t end up in a war or with kinetic action between our two countries”. Pompeo also indicated that “the task for us is to shape our policy moving forward, to regain deterrence to prevent Iran from denying freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf”.

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