Trump threatens Iran with “total destruction” and warns that “it will take a hard blow” | International

The president of the United States, Donald Trump, has raised the tone of his threats this Saturday one week after the war that launched together with Israel against Iran. In a message on his social network, Truth, has assured that he is “seriously considering the total destruction and certain death in areas and groups of people that until now had not been considered targets,” due to “the misconduct” of the Islamic regime. And he set a date: “Today Iran will receive a hard blow!” he wrote in his post, published after 6:00 a.m. (Washington time; six more in mainland Spain). The Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, has responded in

In a sign of the absence of clear leadership in Iran after the death of leader supremo, Ali Jameneíat the hands of Israel last week, the president, Masud Pezeshkián, has starred in an episode in which he has been discredited after apologizing on television for having attacked the Arab countries of the Gulf and announcing that he will only do so from now on in response. In his statement, Araghchí alluded to what he called Pezeshkián’s “de-escalation” gesture and accused the president of the United States of “immediately killing” the president’s good disposition, when he had already been disavowed by Iran’s security and military apparatus.

Waiting for Trump’s “hard blow”, Israel has since dawn bombed with 80 fighter jets both targets of the regime – which it intends to overthrow – and civilians, in the case of the Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran, which has suffered a major fire. “The attacks are intense,” confirms Setayesh, a teacher in her twenties, from the Iranian capital, who does not give her last name for security reasons. “In our area, you can constantly hear the noise of anti-aircraft defense and fighter planes.”

Already at night, American and Israeli fighter jets have bombed an oil depot in the south of Tehran, according to the semi-official Fars agency.

According to Airwars, a British NGO that tracks the damage air wars cause to civilians, the two allied militaries have launched more daily strikes in the campaign against Iran than any other in recent history. The NGO counts 4,000 objectives in the first four days. They are more than in the entire first half year of the air campaign against the Islamic State and almost double that in the first four days of the Israeli offensive in Gaza, in which the dead were already in the thousands. in a much smaller and overpopulated territory.

As reported by NBC, citing anonymous sources, Trump has privately expressed interest in deploying US troops to Iran, while outlining a vision of a post-war in which a new regime cooperates in oil production in a manner similar to Venezuela. after the military capture of Nicolás Maduro. The president of the United States is not thinking, according to this information, of a large-scale invasion, but rather of a small contingent on the ground for specific strategic purposes. At the moment, these anonymous sources say, no decision has been made or any order given in this regard.

For now, the war continues, as it has until now, in the air. With massive and constant bombings by the US and Israel in Iran, and the launch of missiles from that country in retaliation, not only against them (the explosion of interceptions in Jerusalem has been heard again), but also against the Arab countries of the Gulf that host US military bases.

The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, assured late in the day in a speech to the nation that he has “a well-organized plan” with the United States that includes “many surprises.” “Undermine the regime, push for change… We have many more objectives and I will not list them here. To the Iranian people I say: the moment of truth is approaching (…) In the end, this liberation will depend on you.”

This morning, Pezeshkian (who is also part of the provisional Leadership Council of the Islamic Republic) announced in a televised message that there will be no more attacks against Arab countriesunless they are in response to a previous attack. The Iranian president has apologized to those countries and assured that Tehran “had no intention of attacking them.” Iran’s strategy until now has been to extend the conflict throughout the Middle East, to increase the cost of aggression, mainly for the United States.

Shortly after, the Jatam al Anbiya headquarters, which coordinates the commanders of the two Iranian armies – the regular one and the most powerful of the Revolutionary Guard – released a statement denying the president. The military coordination emphasizes that the attacks were not directed against those countries, but against the US military bases they host, despite the fact that they have also targeted their infrastructure, to the point that those States They are considering moving from defensive to offensive actions, hand in hand with Israel and the United States.

“As a continuation of the previous offensive actions, all military bases and interests of the criminal United States and the false Zionist regime (Israel) on the land, sea and skies of the region will be the main target of the forceful and intense blows of the powerful armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the statement said. It was later followed by the Parliament and the National Security Council of Iran.

That body has assured that these attacks against those US facilities in the Middle East will continue “until the leader’s death is avenged.” He refers to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whom the United States and Israel killed with a bombing last Saturday. The secretary of the Council is Ali Larijani, considered a kind of strong man in Iran, who coordinates the relationship between the formal political arm of the Islamic Republic – to which President Pezeskhián belongs – and the military establishment.

In a last-minute speech, Larijani tried to settle the issue by stating that “when the enemy” attacks Iran from regional bases, that country “will respond,” something he defined as a “right” and a “permanent policy.” The countries of the region “must themselves prevent the use of their territory by the United States against Iran, or we will do it,” he warned.

Hours earlier, Pezeskhián had been forced to back down by stating in X that his country “has not attacked neighboring countries, but rather US military bases and facilities in the region.”

Precisely on this day, two American oil companies that provide service to the American forces in the region, Halliburton and KBR, have evacuated part of their staff in Basra (Iraq) after an attack, supposedly with drones the day before, that unleashed a large fire, according to the Al Jazeera network. Some local media suggest, however, that the attack could have been carried out using rockets launched into Iraqi territory, possibly by militias close to Iran.

“Surrender”

Before the denials to Pezeshkián, Trump had interpreted the Iranian president’s message as an “apology and surrender to its Middle Eastern neighbors,” to whom Iran promised “not to shoot again.” “This promise is made only because of the relentless American and Israeli attack. They sought to take control and rule the Middle East. It is the first time in thousands of years that Iran has lost to its neighboring countries.” “They are no longer the bully of the Middle East,” the post continues, “but THE FAILURE OF THE MIDDLE EAST, and will remain so for decades until they give up or, more likely, completely collapse!”

Minutes earlier, the Republican had republished a message from Monday in Truth in which he stated that “America’s arsenals had never been better,” in contrast with the doubts of the experts about the cost of certain ammunition to sustain a war whose ultimate goal is unknown even to the president of the United States himself, who seems guided only by changes in opinion. First he said it would last “a few days,” then “a week,” and then “four or five.” At this point, no one is in a position to guarantee that the conflict will not extend for months or to venture What that hypothetical end of the war will look like.

Trump added an element to that debate on Friday, when he said there would be no deal without “total surrender.” He did so at the beginning of a day that continued with the clarification of his spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt. “Total surrender,” he said, will come when Trump determines that “Iran can no longer pose a threat to the United States.”

The day ended with an angry display of Trump’s loss of patience. It happened after a journalist from Fox News, a friendly network, asked him at the end of a very long event on university sports at the White House about information that suggests that Russia is collaborating with Iran in providing intelligence to achieve American objectives. “That’s an easy problem compared to what we’re dealing with here (the youth competitions), but can I be honest? I have a lot of respect for you, you’ve always been very kind to me. What a silly question right now! We’re talking about something else,” he said before moving on with a disgruntled gesture to the next reporter.

The president of Iran mocked this Saturday the “unconditional surrender” that Trump demanded. “It is a dream that will go with them to the grave,” he responded. “Let our dear people know that all ministers are committed to it. We are at war, we have prepared for it and we will continue to do so,” he added later.