Secretary of State Mike Pompeo echoed President Trump’s all-caps tweet this week, saying the United States is committed to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
“President Trump could not be more clear. On our watch, Iran will not get a nuclear weapon,” Pompeo said during a press briefing Tuesday. “And as we came into office, Iran was on a pathway that had been provided by the nuclear deal, which clearly gave them the opportunity to have those nuclear weapons. We won’t let that happen.”
His message came a day after Trump tweeted, “IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!”
IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2020
Tensions between Iran and the U.S. have reached a peak since Trump ordered the killing of top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani last week. Soleimani was planning to kill American diplomats and military personnel in the region, the U.S. government has said without providing unclassified evidence of the threat.
Trump’s defenders have pointed to the takedown of Soleimani as evidence of his aggressive approach to curbing Iranian aggression in the Middle East.
“We have put Iran in a place that it has never been before,” Pompeo boasted. “It is not political.”
The secretary of state took a shot at former President Barack Obama’s administration for setting up the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which Trump pulled out of in 2018 and has called “disastrous” because Iranians are widely believed to have skirted his predecessor’s administration.
“They chose to underwrite and appease,” Pompeo said. “We have chosen to confront and contain.”
