President Donald Trump has warned Iran that he isn’t afraid to take action against the regime after calling off a retaliatory military strike.
Trump said his decision not to carry out the strike in response to Iran’s downing a US military surveillance drone last month gained him ‘a lot of great capital’, before noting that ‘if something should happen, we’re in a position to do far worse by not doing it.’
‘But, hopefully, we don’t have to do anything,’ he added during an interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson on Monday night.
Trump said he canceled the strike after learning that at least 150 people could be killed as a result.
‘A lot of people said that was a great presidential moment, which was, you know, rather shocking to hear,’ he told Carlson.
‘So, they shot down an unmanned drone. And, they claim it was over their territory, which it wasn’t, but they would say that, so on top of it, they’ll say, unmanned and over their territory, then we go in.
‘Before I sent them out, they had to give me everything I wanted to know by seven o’clock. They walked in, they gave me everything but they didn’t tell me how many people would die. How many Iranians – I know a lot of Iranians from New York City, and they’re great people. They’re all great people. Were all great, right? Iranian or not.’
President Donald Trump warned that he isn’t afraid to take action against Iran on Monday night after calling off a retaliatory military strike
Trump later took aim at the 2015 nuclear deal brokered by former President Barack Obama and renewed his commitment to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
‘Iran now, since we terminated that horrible deal, which was a truly horrible deal, and, you know, you and I aren’t so different in terms of fighting, we want to have peace,’ he said.
‘We want to build our roads and build our schools and build all the things we want to build. But, we can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon… you can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon, and you can’t let certain other countries have nuclear weapons. It’s too devastating.’
Trump’s interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson (right) aired on Monday evening
Reports emerged that Iran has violated the 2015 nuclear deal by exceeding the agreed upon 660-pound threshold for the Islamic Republic’s low-enriched uranium stockpile (file photo)
The interview took place hours before reports emerged that Iran has violated the 2015 nuclear deal by exceeding the agreed upon 660-pound threshold for the Islamic Republic’s low-enriched uranium stockpile.
The White House released a statement earlier in the day outlining how the US will continue to put pressure on Iran.
‘Maximum pressure on the Iranian regime will continue until its leaders alter their course of action,’ White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said. ‘The regime must end its nuclear ambitions and its malign behavior.’
International inspectors and Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization in Tehran revealed the nuclear deal violation on Monday, which marks Iran’s first major departure from the unraveling agreement a year after the US unilaterally withdrew from the accord.
The reports put new pressure on European nations trying to save the deal amid Trump’s maximalist campaign targeting Tehran.
Iran separately threatened to raise its uranium enrichment closer to weapons-grade levels on July 7 if Europe fails to offer it a new deal.
It also further heightens tensions across the wider Middle East in the wake of Iran shooting down the US drone, mysterious attacks on oil tankers that America and the Israelis blame on Tehran, and bomb-laden drone assaults by Yemen’s Iranian-backed rebels targeting Saudi Arabia.
Those rebels claimed a new attack late Monday on Saudi Arabia’s Abha airport that the kingdom said wounded nine people, including one Indian.
The European Union urged Iran to reverse course and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the action ‘a significant step toward making a nuclear weapon’.
Iran long has insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, despite Western fears about it.
At the White House, Trump told reporters Iran was ‘playing with fire’, and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on the international community to require Iran to suspend all enrichment, even at levels allowed under the nuclear deal.
‘The Iranian regime, armed with nuclear weapons, would pose an even greater danger to the region and to the world,’ Pompeo said in a statement.
Though Trump pulled back from airstrikes targeting Iran after the US drone was shot down, Washington has rushed an aircraft carrier strike group, nuclear-capable B-52 bombers and thousands of additional troops to the region.
That’s raised fears that a miscalculation or further incidents could push the two sides into an armed conflict, some 40 years after the Islamic Revolution and the takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran.