Iran warns U.S. it could down more drones as Pompeo arrives in Persian Gulf - The Washington Post

DUBAI — Iran’s navy chief warned the United States on Monday that Iranian forces could shoot down more surveillance drones if they violate the country’s airspace, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Saudi Arabia for talks with Arab allies in the Persian Gulf.

“The enemy dispatched its most sophisticated . . . and most complicated surveillance aircraft” to spy on Iran, and “everyone saw the downing of the drone,” Rear Adm. Hossein Khanzadi said Monday, referring to the U.S. Navy RQ-4A Global Hawk drone shot down by Iran last week.

The incident capped a week of tensions following attacks on two commercial tankers near the Strait of Hormuz on June 13. The United States blamed the attacks on Iran, which has denied involvement.

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Khanzadi said the downing of the drone last week could “always be repeated, and the enemy knows it,” the Tasnim News Agency reported.

The naval commander’s remarks came amid a diplomatic push by the Trump administration to rally regional and other allies around what Pompeo described Sunday as a “global coalition” to confront Iran.

Pompeo met Monday with the Saudi leader, King Salman, “to discuss heightened tensions in the region and the need to promote maritime security in the Strait of Hormuz,” he said on Twitter.

In two separate incidents in May and in June, a total of six commercial vessels near the strait, a key waterway for global oil shipments, were targeted in attacks.

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The State Department’s Iran envoy, Brian Hook, was in Oman’s capital Muscat for meetings he also characterized as focused on building a multinational force to protect shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf, he said in a conference call with reporters.

“There have been too many attacks. We had tankers go up in flames here very recently, and we could have had a maritime disaster there,” Hook said, adding that he shared declassified intelligence with U.S. allies pointing to Iranian involvement.

He has met with officials in Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia and was en route to Bahrain as part of the initiative, he said. New sanctions against Iran would be announced later Monday, according to Hook. He declined to elaborate.

Also Monday, President Trump lamented on Twitter that the United States was “protecting the shipping lanes” in the strait “for other countries . . . for zero compensation.” It was unclear whether his sentiments reflected the conversations that U.S. diplomats were having with allies in the region.

A number of Persian Gulf states have pinned their security on U.S. military prowess here.

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“All of these countries should be protecting their own ships on what has always been . . . a dangerous journey,” he said, adding that China and Japan get most of their energy imports through the strait.

“We don’t even need to be there,” Trump said, citing energy production in the United States. “The U.S. request for Iran is very simple — No Nuclear Weapons and No Further Sponsoring of Terror!”

Trump said over the weekend that he would speak to Iran without preconditions and that his chief concern was preventing Iran’s government from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Trump abandoned a 2015 nuclear accord that was negotiated between Iran and six world powers, including the United States, and that set restrictions on the country’s atomic energy program.

Iran said last week that it would boost its stockpile of low-enriched uranium beyond limits prescribed by the accord, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. Iranian officials said that the other signatories to the deal, including the European Union, had failed to maintain the economic benefits allotted to Iran under the pact.

The near-total embargo imposed by the United States on Iranian industries has prompted European and international firms to withdraw investments, including in the nation’s lucrative oil and gas sectors.

Trump last week said that he authorized a military strike against Iran in response to the downing of the drone but aborted the mission at the last minute to avoid Iranian casualties.

His singular focus on the nuclear issue appeared at odds with his administration’s “maximum pressure campaign,” which seeks to roll back Iranian influence in the region and persuade it give up its ballistic missile program and support for proxy forces in places such as Iraq and Syria.

Persian Gulf allies see Iran’s ballistic missiles and network of regional proxy forces as a threat to stability in the Middle East and have supported the administration’s aggressive push to compel Iran to give up both.

Critics say the strategy has had the adverse effect of prompting Iran to double down on what it says is a defensive posture in the region.

In his conference call with reporters Monday, Hook said the United States was “looking for a deal [with Iran] that is truly comprehensive” and that addresses “the spectrum of threats to peace and security that Iran represents.”

He said such an agreement would include Iran’s nuclear program, its ballistic missiles, regional activities and the detention of dual nationals.

Still, Hook emphasized Monday that “there is currently no back channel operating between the United States government and Iranian government.”

“They know where to find us,” he said.

An adviser to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Monday that if the United States “wants more than Iran gave” as part of the nuclear deal, then it “has to also give Iran more.”

“War and sanctions are two faces of the same coin,” the adviser, Hesmeddin Ashena, said on Twitter. Calling for talks “while adding sanctions and threatening war isn’t acceptable,” he said.

After a tense week, Trump strikes an unusually friendly tone toward Iran

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