I’ll make Iran great again, says Trump

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wants to build a global coalition against Iran during consultations in the Middle East.

Mike Pompeo at Andrews Air Force Base before boarding a plane headed to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Picture: AFP

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says he wants to build a global coalition against Iran during ­urgent consultations in the Middle East, following a week of crisis that saw the US pull back from the brink of a military strike.

Even as he threatened new sanctions, Donald Trump said that he wanted to strike a new ­nuclear deal with Tehran that would “make Iran great again” by helping to turn around its crippled economy if its abandoned its pursuit of the atomic bomb.

“We could have a deal with them very quickly if they want to do it. If Iran wants to become a wealthy nation again, become a prosperous nation again, we’ll call it, ‘Let’s make Iran great again’,” the US President said.

Mr Pompeo spoke yesterday as he left Washington for Saudi Arabia, followed by the United Arab Emirates, Sunni Arab allies that are alarmed by Shia Iran’s ­increasing assertiveness and are working to limit its influence in the region.

His stops in Jeddah and Abu Dhabi were hastily arranged late last week as additions to a trip to India from where he will join Mr Trump in Japan and South Korea. But they were not announced until just before his departure in a sign of fast-moving and unpredictable developments.

“We’ll be talking with them about how to make sure that we are all strategically aligned, and how we can build out a global ­coalition, a coalition not only throughout the Gulf states, but in Asia and in Europe, that understands this challenge as it is prepared to push back against the world’s largest state sponsor of terror,” Mr Pompeo said.

But even as Mr Pompeo delivered his tough talk, he echoed Mr Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence in saying the US was prepared to negotiate with Iran, without preconditions, in a bid to ease tensions.

Those tensions have been mounting since Mr Trump last year withdrew the US from a global nuclear deal with Iran and began pressuring Tehran with economic sanctions. A fresh round of Iran sanctions was to be announced today in a bid to force the Iranian leadership into talks.

“They know precisely how to find us,” Mr Pompeo said.

Mr Trump initially said Iran had made a “very big mistake” and that it was “hard to believe” that Iran’s shooting down of a US drone on Thursday was not intentional. He later said he thought it was an unintentional act carried out by a “loose and stupid” Iranian and called off retaliatory military strikes against Iran.

On Sunday, Mr Trump claimed that Iran had acted “knowingly”, but he also said that he appreciated Iran’s decision to not shoot down a manned US spy plane, and he opined about eventually becoming Iran’s “best friend” if Tehran ultimately agrees to abandon its drive to build nuclear weapons and he helps the country turn around its crippled economy.

US National Security Adviser John Bolton stepped in yesterday with a blunt warning from Jerusalem. Mr Bolton said Iran should not “mistake US prudence and discretion for weakness” after Mr Trump called off the military strike.

Mr Trump said at the weekend he backed away from the planned strikes after learning that about 150 people would be killed, but he said the military option remained.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani yesterday blamed Washington’s “interventionist military presence” for fanning the flames. Shortly thereafter, Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen launched an attack against an airport in southern Saudi Arabia, killing one person and wounding seven others. Such attacks have been cited by Saudi and US officials as examples of Iran’s “malign behaviour” in the Middle East.

Mr Pompeo declared the goal of his talks with the Saudi kingdom and the UAE was to deny Iran “the resources to foment terror, to build out their nuclear weapon system, to build out their missile program”. “We are going to deny them the resources they need to do that, thereby keep American interests and American people safe,” he said.

US military cyber forces on Thursday launched a strike against Iranian military computer systems. The cyber attacks disabled Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps computer systems that controlled its rocket and missile launchers, US officials said.

AP