Tag: Iran

Exclusive: Trump warned Iran via Oman that U.S. attack was imminent, called for talks – Iranian officials

DUBAI (Reuters) – Iranian officials told Reuters on Friday that Tehran had received a message from U.S. President Donald Trump through Oman overnight warning that a U.S. attack on Iran was imminent.

“In his message, Trump said he was against any war with Iran and wanted to talk to Tehran about various issues … he gave a short period of time to get our response but Iran’s immediate response was that it is up to Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei to decide about this issue,” one of the officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The second official said: “We made it clear that the leader is against any talks, but the message will be conveyed to him to make a decision … However, we told the Omani official that any attack against Iran will have regional and international consequences.”

View the complete June 21 article on the Reuters News website here.

Trump to send 1,000 troops to Middle East as Iran tensions escalate

The U.S. is deploying an additional 1,000 troops to the Middle East in response to “hostile behavior by Iranian forces and their proxy groups” that threaten U.S. “personnel and interests,” acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan announced Monday.

The backdrop: The U.S.-Iran standoff is reaching uncharted waters. As the Trump administration scrambles to rally an international response to Iran’s alleged covert attacks last week, Tehran is taking a long-feared step in broad daylight — announcing it will breach the 2015 nuclear deal’s limits on enriched uranium in 10 day’s time.

  • Shanahan said the U.S. isn’t seeking “conflict” with Iran, but would “make adjustments to force levels as necessary given intelligence reporting and credible threats.”
  • Meanwhile, the Pentagon tonight released additional photos it says indicate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps was behind attacks on two oil tankers last week.
  • While the U.K., Saudi Arabia and Israel have backed the administration’s assessment, domestic critics and some U.S. allies — including Germany and Japan — have demanded more evidence

View the complete June 17 article by Dave Lawler on the Axios website here.

Trump rails against Iran. But who’s listening?

Tensions between Iran and the United States continued to build over the weekend. President Trump and his lieutenants accused the regime in Tehran of launching attacks on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman last week, pointing to apparent video evidence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard removing an unexploded mine from one of the targeted ships. “It’s probably got essentially Iran written all over it,” Trump said in his distinct syntax on Friday.

Appearing on television on Sunday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Iran’s culpability in the affair was “unmistakable” and urged the world “to unite against this threat from this Islamic Republic.” A coterie of Washington hawks — in Congress and in the opinion pages of major newspapers — floated the possibility of retaliatory military strikes against Iranian naval targets, an eventuality Trump is supposedly eager to avoid.

Iran denies any involvement in the attack. The situation in the Middle East will occupy a morning sessionat the U.N. Security Council on Monday. But for all the Trump administration’s certainty and ire, the international response to the developments, with the exception of a handful of countries, has been rather muted.

View the complete June 17 article by Ishaan Tharoor on The Washington Post website here.

Japanese ship owner contradicts U.S. account of how tanker was attacked

TOKYO — The owner of a Japanese tanker attacked in the Gulf of Oman offered a different account Friday of the nature of the attack than that provided by the United States.

Yutaka Katada, president of the Kokuka Sangyo shipping company, said the Filipino crew of the Kokuka Courageous tanker thought their vessel was hit by flying objects rather than a mine.

“The crew are saying it was hit with a flying object. They say something came flying toward them, then there was an explosion, then there was a hole in the vessel,” he told reporters. “Then some crew witnessed a second shot.”

View the complete June 14 article by Simon Denyer and Carol Morello on The Washington Post website here.

Pompeo blames Iran for attacks on oil tankers

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday accused Iran of being responsible for attacks on oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz and a string of other incidents, saying the regime was engaged in “an unacceptable campaign of escalating tensions.”

Why it matters: Fears that the U.S. was on course for war with Iran had been reduced in recent days, with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe traveling to Tehran on a Trump-endorsed mission to reduce tensions. But Pompeo’s tone was hawkish today in declaring Iran “a clear threat to international peace and security.”

  • Pompeo did not present any evidence that Iran was responsible, but said that the U.S. would raise the attacks at the UN Security Council today.
  • Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, denied responsibility for the attacks and said the timing was “”suspicious.” Meanwhile Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, told Abe that Iran would not engage in negotiations with President Trump.

View the complete June 13 article by Dave Lawler and Orion Rummler on the Axios website here.

‘This is big’: 76 retired US generals and diplomats warn Trump against war with Iran

President Donald Trump often says he listens to military generals more than anyone else, and, as the White House prepares to send 1,500 soldiers to the Middle East, that claim is being tested by a Friday letter from the American College of National Security Leaders.

The letter, which is signed by 76 retired generals, admirals, ambassadors, and diplomats, was published Friday morning by War on the Rocks. The letter asks the administration not to pursue war with Iran, mainly for strategic reasons.

“A war with Iran, either by choice or miscalculation, would produce dramatic repercussions in an already destabilized Middle East,” reads the letter, “and drag the United States into another armed conflict at immense financial, human, and geopolitical cost.”

View the complete May 25 article by Eoin Higgins from Common Dreams on the AlterNet website.

Trump to send 1,500 troops to Middle East to counter Iran

President Trump on Friday announced that the U.S. will send roughly 1,500 troops to the Middle East in order to counter Iran’s influence in the region.
Trump emphasized that the new deployment will provide force protection for existing troops in the area amid heightened tensions with Tehran.
The president approved the additional forces on Thursday following a meeting with acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford at the White House.
“We want to have protection,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

View the complete May 24 article by Ellen Mitchell and Jordan Fabian on The Hill website here.

US could be at war by the time Congress returns from recess, Udall says

Democrats force votes on approving war with Iran, but come up short in the Senate

Democrats on both sides of Capitol Hill have been forcing votes on President Donald Trump’s military powers this week amid the ratcheting up of tensions with Iran, getting predictably disparate results.

In the latest test, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday turned back a Democrat-led effort to move legislation designed to thwart preemptive military action against Iran.

On a 9-13 vote, with only Republican Rand Paul crossing party lines in support, members of the committee rejected an amendment to Syria-related legislation offered by Tom Udall of New Mexico with the backing of Christopher S. Murphy of Connecticut.

View the complete May 22 article by Niels Lesniewski on The Roll Call website here.

The Trump Administration’s 10 Most Dangerous Actions Concerning Iran

President Donald Trump’s erratic Iran policy has left America more isolated and less safe. In his first week in office, he alienated Iranians by banning them from America. Then he ignored the warnings of the world, nuclear experts, and his own national security team to shred a functioning nuclear agreement. For all Iran’s continued destabilizing behavior, President Trump’s actions have made America the instigator of the current crisis in the eyes of the world. He has ratcheted up tensions with no plan for success.

Even now, there remains a serious risk that Trump and his team will blunder into a preventable and unnecessary war. Trump’s clumsy attempts at diplomacy with Iran are likely to fail—just as they have with North Korea. The chaos is obvious, and productive results are nowhere to be seen.

Below is a list of President Trump’s 10 worst moments regarding Iran.

View the complete May 21 article by Kelly Magsamen, Brian Katulis, Peter Juul and Daniel Benaim on the Center for American Progress website here.

‘Don’t fall for it’: Arizona congressman and former Marine who ‘gets the same intel’ as Tom Cotton warns some GOPers are ‘exaggerating’ the Iran threat

Before Rep. Ruben Gallego of Arizona pursued a career in politics, he served in the United States military: Gallego was a Marine infantryman in Iraq in 2005. And the 39-year-old Democratic congressman is warning that the push for a military confrontation with Iran in 2019 is full of misleading assertions.

Gallego, now a member of the House Armed Services Committee, received a classified briefing on May 17—and the following day, he told the Washington Post, “What I saw was a lot of misinterpretation and wanting conflict coming from the administration and intelligence community. Intel doesn’t show existential threats. Even what it shows, it doesn’t show threats to U.S. interests.”

The claim that Iran poses a major threat to the U.S. in 2019, according to Gallego, is mainly being advanced by National Security Adviser John Bolton and Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas. On Saturday, Gallego took to Twitter and warned, “I get the same intel as Cotton. He is greatly exaggerating the situation to spur us to war. Don’t fall for it.”

View the complete May 20 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.