US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has warned that Iran could face further military action if it fails to change course, saying Tehran has still not learnt from two previous “kicks of the mule”.

Axar.az reports that, speaking to The Jerusalem Post, Huckabee said Trump was not surprised by Iran’s refusal to yield, even though its regime and capacity appear to have been significantly weakened over the six months of fighting; rather, he said, the president was “exasperated with their stubbornness.”

“Where I come from in America, we have a saying: ‘There is no education in the second kick of the mule.’ What it means is, if the mule kicks you once and you don’t learn something from that, the chances are that the second kick ain’t gonna teach you much either,” the ambassador said.

“The Iranians are now after ‘two kicks of the mule,’ and they still don’t seem to get it … they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon, they’re not going to get to enrich uranium, and it may take a ‘third kick of the mule’ at some point. But I hope they get the message. I hope they change their ways,” he said.