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Post by Admin on Jun 21, 2019 17:56:38 GMT
President Donald Trump said Friday that he called off the attack on Iran just as the US was "cocked & loaded" to strike because he decided there would be too many deaths for a proportionate response to the downing of a US drone earlier this week.
"We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights (sic) when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General," Trump tweeted. "10 minutes before the strike I stopped it."
Causing so many casualties, he added, would not have been "proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone."
Trump also said that he is in "no hurry," touted the US military as "by far the best in the world" and said he had imposed new sanctions against Iran "last night."
It was unclear what sanctions Trump was referring to.
CNN has reached out to the Treasury Department and National Security Council for comment. It's also unclear why the President only learned of the casualty estimates after he had first ordered the attack and minutes before the US strikes were to hit their targets.
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Post by Admin on Jun 21, 2019 19:34:16 GMT
On the upside, even if the campaign failed to dislodge the Tehran government, it could cause significant long-term damage to Iran’s military, economic and scientific infrastructure, setting back Tehran’s military ambitions in the region. This outcome is probably most amenable to US allies in the Middle East, who don’t worry overmuch about the prospect of committing the United States to an open-ended military conflict with Iran. The Trump administration appears ready to decertify Iranian compliance with the the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), despite a lack of evidence of Iranian violations. For critics of the JCPOA, this represents a move in the right direction; the goal of U.S. policy should be the end of the Islamic Republic and the overthrow of the existing regime in Tehran. As long as this regime exists, no matter how constrained it is by bilateral and multilateral agreements, it will seek to undermine the stability of the established order in the Middle East through overt and covert military means. This position is held in the United States by figures such as Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and by policymakers such as Sen. Tom Cotton. The desire for regime change is also shared by some in the Middle East, including significant elements of the Israeli and Saudi national security states.  The Federal Aviation Administration has prohibited "all U.S. carriers and commercial operators" from flying over the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, near Iran, in the wake of the country shooting down an unmanned drone early Thursday. The FAA announced the decision, called a notice-to-airman, or NOTAM, alert, late Thursday. "All flight operations in the overwater area of the Tehran Flight Information Region (FIR) (OIIX) above the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman only are prohibited until further notice due to heightened military activities and increased political tensions in the region, which present an inadvertent risk to U.S. civil aviation operations and potential for miscalculation or mis-identification," the FAA said in a press release. |
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Post by Admin on Jun 23, 2019 17:28:14 GMT
President Donald Trump warned the United States may launch a devastating military attack on Iran unless it comes to the negotiating table and drops its bid to develop nuclear weapons.
“I'm not looking for war, and if there is, it'll be obliteration like you’ve never seen before. But I’m not looking to do that. But you can’t have a nuclear weapon. You want to talk? Good. Otherwise you can have a bad economy for the next three years,” Trump said during an interview with NBC’s “Meet The Press” airing Sunday.
The president said he’d be willing to sit down with Iranian officials without preconditions.
The comments, made during an interview taped Friday, came the same day Trump confirmed on Twitter that he called off a retaliatory strike on Iran at the last minute Thursday night. He said he decided that the potential cost of human lives was “not proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone.”
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Post by Admin on Jun 25, 2019 17:40:31 GMT
Donald Trump has lashed out at the "ignorant and insulting statement" released by Iran after the US president announced fresh sanctions against the Middle Eastern nation. The tweets came after Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said the move proved the White House was "mentally retarded". Mr Trump said it showed Iran's leaders "do not understand reality".  He unveiled the sanctions on Monday, saying they were a response to recent "aggressive behaviour" by Iran. The sanctions target a number of individuals, notably Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who Mr Trump said was "ultimately responsible for the hostile conduct of the regime". |
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Post by Admin on Jul 14, 2019 17:44:31 GMT
Donald Trump abandoned the Iran nuclear deal to spite Barack Obama, according to a leaked memo written by the UK's former ambassador in the US.
Sir Kim Darroch described the move as an act of "diplomatic vandalism", according to the Mail on Sunday.
The paper says the memo was written after the then Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson appealed to the US in 2018 to stick with the deal.
The latest leak came despite the Met Police warning against publication.
The first memos criticising President Trump's administration, which emerged a week ago, prompted a furious reaction from the US president and resulted in Sir Kim resigning from his role.
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