<p>US top diplomat Mike Pompeo has used a late term Middle East tour to cement Washington's "maximum pressure" campaign on Iran, so President-elect Joe Biden can't easily reverse it.</p>.<p>As the Donald Trump era draws to a close, US Secretary of State Pompeo has made containing the Islamic republic a key focus of his trip and even refused to rule out a military strike in a newspaper interview published Sunday.</p>.<p>While Biden has signalled a return to diplomacy with the Islamic republic, Pompeo has insisted Iran is the region's top threat, in a tour taking in Israel and the UAE and concluding in Saudi Arabia -- all countries that view Iran through the same hawkish lens.</p>.<p>"This administration... is here until January 20" and will "continue to pursue its policies", a senior US official travelling with Pompeo said during the stop in Abu Dhabi, which had followed a visit to Qatar's capital Doha.</p>.<p>"I would hope that this leverage that the (Trump) administration works so hard to get will be used to good purpose to get the Iranians to, once again, start behaving like a normal state."</p>.<p>Trump, who has refused to concede the bitter US election contest, unilaterally withdrew from a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers over two years ago, before reimposing crippling sanctions on Tehran.</p>.<p>In Jerusalem, Pompeo said in a statement Washington would keep up its policy of "maximum pressure" to isolate Iran, later describing it as "extraordinarily effective".</p>.<p>He has warned that the US could impose new sanctions in the coming "weeks and months", adding to a catalogue of measures slapped on the Islamic republic in the last two years.</p>.<p>In an interview with the National newspaper during his stop in Abu Dhabi, Pompeo was asked whether the US was considering a military strike against Iran, after the New York Times reported that Trump had been mulling such an option over Iran's nuclear programme not long after the election.</p>.<p>Pompeo -- who, before embarking on his tour alluded to a second Trump administration, in apparent defiance of the election result -- reportedly responded by saying that the US president "always retains the right to do what's needed to ensure that Americans are safe."</p>.<p>Critics of Trump's foreign policy have accused him of ratcheting up tensions to a point of no return so that Biden is unable to resume dialogue with Tehran.</p>.<p>Biden -- vice-president under Barack Obama, when Tehran agreed the nuclear deal with world powers -- is expected to attempt to reinvigorate that agreement, setting him on a potential collision course with Iran's arch-rival Saudi Arabia.</p>.<p>Riyadh has for years led a military coalition in support of Yemen's internationally recognised government against the Iran backed Huthi rebels, in a war that the UN warned this weekend leaves the impoverished country on the brink of famine.</p>.<p>In response to reports that the outgoing Trump administration could designate the Huthis as a terrorist group before leaving office, the senior official accompanying Pompeo did not confirm or deny the possibility.</p>.<p>"We would hope that the Huthis would negotiate in good faith... with UN representative Martin Griffith towards finding a political solution for the war in Yemen," the US official said.</p>.<p>In stark contrast to the Trump administration's regional loyalties, the president-elect pledged on the campaign trail to turn Saudi Arabia into a "pariah", amid concerns over its military entanglement in Yemen and its wider human rights record.</p>.<p>Saudi Arabia, for its part, has said it expects no major change in its relationship with the US under Biden.</p>.<p>"We deal with the president of the United States as a friend, whether he's Republican or Democrat," Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs, told CNN in an interview released over the weekend.</p>
<p>US top diplomat Mike Pompeo has used a late term Middle East tour to cement Washington's "maximum pressure" campaign on Iran, so President-elect Joe Biden can't easily reverse it.</p>.<p>As the Donald Trump era draws to a close, US Secretary of State Pompeo has made containing the Islamic republic a key focus of his trip and even refused to rule out a military strike in a newspaper interview published Sunday.</p>.<p>While Biden has signalled a return to diplomacy with the Islamic republic, Pompeo has insisted Iran is the region's top threat, in a tour taking in Israel and the UAE and concluding in Saudi Arabia -- all countries that view Iran through the same hawkish lens.</p>.<p>"This administration... is here until January 20" and will "continue to pursue its policies", a senior US official travelling with Pompeo said during the stop in Abu Dhabi, which had followed a visit to Qatar's capital Doha.</p>.<p>"I would hope that this leverage that the (Trump) administration works so hard to get will be used to good purpose to get the Iranians to, once again, start behaving like a normal state."</p>.<p>Trump, who has refused to concede the bitter US election contest, unilaterally withdrew from a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers over two years ago, before reimposing crippling sanctions on Tehran.</p>.<p>In Jerusalem, Pompeo said in a statement Washington would keep up its policy of "maximum pressure" to isolate Iran, later describing it as "extraordinarily effective".</p>.<p>He has warned that the US could impose new sanctions in the coming "weeks and months", adding to a catalogue of measures slapped on the Islamic republic in the last two years.</p>.<p>In an interview with the National newspaper during his stop in Abu Dhabi, Pompeo was asked whether the US was considering a military strike against Iran, after the New York Times reported that Trump had been mulling such an option over Iran's nuclear programme not long after the election.</p>.<p>Pompeo -- who, before embarking on his tour alluded to a second Trump administration, in apparent defiance of the election result -- reportedly responded by saying that the US president "always retains the right to do what's needed to ensure that Americans are safe."</p>.<p>Critics of Trump's foreign policy have accused him of ratcheting up tensions to a point of no return so that Biden is unable to resume dialogue with Tehran.</p>.<p>Biden -- vice-president under Barack Obama, when Tehran agreed the nuclear deal with world powers -- is expected to attempt to reinvigorate that agreement, setting him on a potential collision course with Iran's arch-rival Saudi Arabia.</p>.<p>Riyadh has for years led a military coalition in support of Yemen's internationally recognised government against the Iran backed Huthi rebels, in a war that the UN warned this weekend leaves the impoverished country on the brink of famine.</p>.<p>In response to reports that the outgoing Trump administration could designate the Huthis as a terrorist group before leaving office, the senior official accompanying Pompeo did not confirm or deny the possibility.</p>.<p>"We would hope that the Huthis would negotiate in good faith... with UN representative Martin Griffith towards finding a political solution for the war in Yemen," the US official said.</p>.<p>In stark contrast to the Trump administration's regional loyalties, the president-elect pledged on the campaign trail to turn Saudi Arabia into a "pariah", amid concerns over its military entanglement in Yemen and its wider human rights record.</p>.<p>Saudi Arabia, for its part, has said it expects no major change in its relationship with the US under Biden.</p>.<p>"We deal with the president of the United States as a friend, whether he's Republican or Democrat," Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs, told CNN in an interview released over the weekend.</p>