US warns Iran: Do not confuse prudence with weakness

US National Security Adviser John Bolton said Sunday that Iran should not "mistake US prudence and discretion for weakness," after the US abruptly called off military strikes against Iran in response to the shooting down of an unmanned American surveillance drone. The Trump administration has vowed to combine a "maximum pressure" campaign of economic sanctions with a buildup of American forces in the region, following the US withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. As President Trump said on Friday our military is rebuilt, new and ready to go," Bolton said in Jerusalem alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, himself a vocal critic of Iran over the years. "It further undermined the already limited confidence of other Western leaders in Trump's judgment, it cast the US president as a paper tiger and provided a moment of triumph for the ayatollahs in Tehran and it raised new doubts about the rationale behind Netanyahu's drive to persuade Trump to abandon the 2015 nuclear deal," wrote Haaretz columnist Chemi Shalev.