His comments come after a series of rapid escalations between Washington and Tehran.
"We have now had over a half dozen attacks that have been launched by the Iranian regime because they don't like the economic pressure that the United States has put into place," he added.
Trump said the U.S. was "cocked and loaded to retaliate" against Iran on Thursday, but he changed his mind 10 minutes before planned strikes.U.S. officials said the drone was flying over international waters in the Strait of Hormuz — the world's busiest transit lane for seaborne oil shipments — but Iran claims it entered its airspace..Tensions between the U.S.
When asked to clarify whether he believed Trump was right to say the downing of a drone may have been unintentional, Hook replied: "The Iranian regime likes to keep it very opaque. And its often the case that the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing." "But, we know that we have to judge Iran by what it does and not what it intends to do," Hook said, before adding the White House's maximum pressure strategy had denied the Islamic Republic access to tens of billions of dollars of revenue which it would otherwise have spent "destabilizing the Middle East."On Friday, Hook told reporters at a news conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia that Iran did not have the right to respond to U.S. diplomacy with military force.
The U.S. president has said he remains open to negotiations with Iran, but Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei categorically ruled out talks with the Trump administration last week.
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