The president said he could be Iran’s “best friend,” though military action remains an option.

But president says U.S. won’t let it have nukes

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Saturday that military action against Iran was still an option in retaliation for its downing of an unmanned U.S. military aircraft, but amid heightened tensions he dangled the prospect of eventually becoming an unlikely “best friend” of America’s longtime Middle Eastern adversary.

Trump also said “we very much appreciate” that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard chose not to target a U.S. spy plane carrying more than 30 people.

“The fact is we’re not going to have Iran have a nuclear weapon,” he said as he left the White House for a weekend at the Camp David retreat. “And when they agree to that, they are going to have a wealthy country, they’re going to be so happy and I’m going to be their best friend.”

“I hope that happens. I hope that happens, but it may not,” Trump said. He later said Iran will be hit with unspecified new sanctions on Monday.

Trump’s comments came as Iran summoned the United Arab Emirates’ top envoy to Tehran to protest his nation’s decision to let the U.S. use one of its military bases to launch the drone that Iran says entered its airspace, state media said Saturday.

Iran issued a “strong protest” to the UAE diplomat, saying Iran does not tolerate the facilitation of foreign forces that violate its territory, the report by the official IRNA news agency said.

The U.S. said its RQ-4A Global Hawk was shot down Thursday over international waters in the Strait of Hormuz, not inside Iranian airspace.

Trump said U.S. sanctions on Iran have turned the country into an “economic mess,” and he tweeted later Saturday about new penalties.

On Thursday, U.S. military forces launched a cyberstrike against Iranian military computer systems in response to the loss of the military drone. Officials told The Associated Press that Trump had authorized the strike, which disabled computer systems controlling rocket and missile launchers.

The Associated Press This photo from the official IRNA news agency shows debris from what Iran’s Revolutionary Guard aerospace division describes as the U.S. drone that was shot down over Iranian territory Thursday. The U.S. says it was over international waters.