MOHAMMAD AL-KASSIM
11/17/2020
Threat comes after report that US President Donald Trump was considering pre-emptive strike in waning days of his administration
The United States can expect a “crushing response” if it launches an attack on Iran, an Iranian government spokesman promised.
“Any action against the Iranian nation would certainly face a crushing response,” spokesman Ali Rabiei said, in a statement streamed on an official government website.
Rabiei added that he personally found it unlikely that Washington “would want to bring insecurity to the world and region.”
President Donald Trump asked his senior advisers last week about whether he could launch an offensive strike on Iran’s main nuclear site, The New York Times reported on Monday.
The meeting reportedly took place Thursday in the Oval Office with top aides in attendance, including Vice President Mike Pence; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley.
The senior officials “dissuaded the president from moving ahead with a military strike,” warning him that such an attack could escalate into a broader conflict in the last weeks of his presidency, The Times reported.
Obviously it was always in the cards that, should he lose the election, he would like to do something as a parting shot
Israeli defense analyst Amir Oren told The Media Line that President Trump’s failure to reach a new nuclear deal with Iran may tempt him to launch a limited military attack on the Islamic Republic.
“Obviously it was always in the cards that, should he lose the election, he would like to do something as a parting shot,” he said.
The mere notion that the discussion was leaked to the media within days shows the level of disagreement with the president, according to Oren.
“Even more important than the content of this report is the fact that it was leaked by someone in the close circle of advisers who told him it is not a good idea. Which means that people are trying to abort this idea, and because it was made public, Iran can now prepare itself and move material that it wants out of Natanz,” he said.
President Trump withdrew the US from the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement in 2018 and imposed crippling sanctions on Iran, calling the accord “a horrible, one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made.”
Oren argues that the leaked report is an indication that the sanctions did not achieve their goal.
“He has failed in his policy of ‘maximum pressure,’” Oren said of the US president.
If there is any form of attack, the Iranians will not wait; they will respond immediately and overwhelmingly and they will strike targets across the board. They will strike those countries that have provided the United States with the capability of carrying out these attacks
Mohammad Marandi, professor of American studies at the University of Tehran, concedes that it’s hard to read President Trump. He told The Media Line that Tehran won’t sit idly by if it is attacked.
“Trump isn’t someone that is predictable so the Iranians are prepared for any foolish mistake by the Trump regime,” Marandi said. “If there is any form of attack, the Iranians will not wait; they will respond immediately and overwhelmingly and they will strike targets across the board. They will strik
Content retrieved from: https://themedialine.org/top-stories/iran-threatens-crushing-response-if-us-strikes-nuclear-site/.
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