Pompeo threatens Iran with action if US interests attacked
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has threatened to take action against Iran in case of any attack on American interests in the Middle East.
In an interview with the CNN on Friday, Pompano warned that Washington would hold Tehran responsible for any attack on its interests in the region.
"We have told the Islamic Republic of Iran that using a proxy force to attack an American interest will not prevent us from responding against the prime actor," he said. "We will not let Iran get away with using a proxy force to attack an American interest; Iran will be held accountable for those incidents."
Asked if the US response included a military action, Pompeo said, "They're going to be held accountable. If they’re responsible for the arming and training of these militias, we’re gonna go to the source.”
Both the US embassy in Baghdad and its consulate in Basra came under attack earlier this month amid a fresh wave of violence in Iraq.
The Iranian consulate and the provincial office of Iraq's Hashd al-Sha’abi were also gutted in the rampage.
At the time, the White House blamed Iran for the “life-threatening attacks” against its diplomatic missions in Iraq and warned that Washington would hold Tehran responsible if there are future assaults.
This drew a reaction from Iran's Foreign Ministry which rejected what it described as “astonishing, provocative and irresponsible accusations," stressing that Washington could not cover up its involvement in fomenting tensions in Iraq through blaming others.
Meanwhile, several Iraqi officials confirmed that the US had instigated the chaos in Iraq in a bid to sow discord among political parties.
Elsewhere in his interview, Pompeo claimed that Iran had been "confronting the world" by "arming" Lebanon's Hezbollah resistance movement and Yemen's Ansarullah Houthi fighters.
The US administration, under President Donald Trump, has stepped up its hostile rhetoric against Iran.
Back in May, US President Donald Trump pulled his country out of the 2015 Iran deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), despite objections from the other signatories to the accord.
Trump also introduced the first wave of anti-Iran sanctions in August and threatened that the second wave would “ratchet up to yet another level” in November.
'US endangers int'l security'
Separately on Friday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif lambasted the Trump administration for being a “real threat” to the Middle East and global “peace and security,” saying the White House is destabilizing the world.
"It is true that there is a real threat to our region and to international peace and security: That threat is the Trump administration’s sense of entitlement to destabilize the world along with rogue accomplices in our region. The US must start acting like a normal state," he tweeted.
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