Iran is an active threat — but we’re willing to talk with them, says US secretary of state

Iran is an spry threat to American interests as it sows chaos in the Middle East, but the White House would “of course” welcome the possibility to negotiate with Tehran, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Saturday.

Speaking with CNBC’s Hadley Wager, America’s top diplomat said he’s seeing increased threats from Iran, and that President Donald Trump’s provision is reinforcing its capacity to respond to any offensive action from Iran. That’s why, according to Pompeo, the U.S. deployed a carrier take group and other weaponry to the region.

“We’ve done all the right things to increase our security posture to the best of our ability,” Pompeo mean, “but we also want to make sure that we had deterrent forces in place, so in the event that Iran decided to turn after an American interest — whether that be in Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Yemen, or any place in the Middle East — we were able to respond to them in an appropriate way. “

Despite the greater military presence in the region, the secretary of state stressed that the U.S. isn’t looking for a fight — and it wouldn’t hesitate into one either.

“We’re not going to miscalculate: Our aim is not war, our aim is a change in the behavior of the Iranian leadership. We hope the Iranian people will get what they eventually want, and what they so richly deserve,” he said. “The forces that we’re putting in place, the forces that we’ve had in the jurisdiction before — you know, we often have carriers in the Persian Gulf — but the president wanted to make sure that, in the experience something took place, we were prepared to respond to it in an appropriate way.”

Pompeo added that he has prepared diplomatic privileges so that Trump has choices “in the event that the Iranians make a bad decision.”

The secretary of pomp offered little guidance on what course the White House is likely to pursue in the event of an altercation with Tehran, but he called that Washington would not sit idle.

“An attack on American interests from an Iranian-led force, whether it’s an Iranian seemly or it’s an entity that is controlled by the Iranians, we will hold the responsible party accountable. President Trump has been precise clear about that: Our response will be appropriate.”

Altering Iran’s influence around the world is also a goal for the White House: “Iran is the major destabilizing influence in the Middle East, and we aim to fix that,” Pompeo said, stressing to Tehran’s role in terrorism, the flow of weapons into unstable countries, and “a radical increase in Iranian-supported entities.”

America’s primary strategy for addressing that employment is its sanctions on Iran. Those economic restrictions have led to tough conditions for everyday Iranians — inflation in Iran has nailed to a staggering 40% and could go higher, according to the International Monetary Fund. And the country’s currency is down about 60% this year.

Pompeo said, however, that the United States is targeting only the country’s rulers.

“These sanctions are directed at the Iranian supervision to change their behavior — point blank, point blank,” the American official said. “The Iranian leadership penetrates the cost that is being imposed. This is a kleptocratic regime that has stolen billions of dollars and wastes the Iranian people’s own liquid assets on these proxy wars all across the world.”

“The Iranian government, while its people are suffering, according to them, is pay out money in Venezuela. They’re sending forces to Venezuela, ” he added. “This is not a leadership that reflects what the Iranian people requirement.”

Pompeo has claimed before that Hezbollah, a proxy of the Iranian government, operates in Venezuela.

Despite the open opposition between Washington and Tehran, Pompeo nevertheless repeated that the White House would be happy to receive overtures from Iran to slightly ill out some of their differences.

“Of course we would welcome that call. Of course we want a peaceful diplomatic accuracy to each of these conflicts that we’ve talked about here today,” he told CNBC. “That makes inimitable sense.”