The United States is building up forces in the Middle East in case Iran tries to harm American interests, the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in an interview with CNBC TV channel.

“We’ve done all the right things to increase our security posture to the best of our ability,” Pompeo said, “but we also want to make sure that we had deterrent forces in place, so in the event that Iran decided to come after an American interest — whether that be in Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Yemen, or any place in the Middle East — we were prepared to respond to them in an appropriate way. ”

According to him, an attack on American interests from an Iranian-led force, whether it’s an Iranian proper or it’s an entity that is controlled by the Iranians, “we will hold the responsible party accountable. President Trump has been very clear about that: Our response will be appropriate.”

“We’re not going to miscalculate: Our aim is not war, our aim is a change in the behavior of the Iranian leadership. We hope the Iranian people will get what they finally want, and what they so richly deserve,” he said. “The forces that we’re putting in place, the forces that we’ve had in the region before — you know, we often have carriers in the Persian Gulf — but the president wanted to make sure that, in the event something took place, we were prepared to respond to it in an appropriate way.”

The US National Security Advisor John Bolton announced on May 5 that Washington would send a naval strike team led by aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and a tactical bomber group to the operational zone of the US Central Command (CENTCOM).

On Tuesday, representatives of the US Central Command stated that Washington allegedly received information about Iran’s preparation for a possible attack on US forces in the Middle East.