President Trump has been briefed on new military strike options Irana senior US official confirmed on Sunday.
Mr. Trump appeared to lay out his red line for action on Friday when he warned that if the Iranian government starts “killing people like they have done in the past, we will be involved.”
“We will be hitting them hard where it hurts,” he said at the White House. “And that doesn’t mean boots on the ground, but it means hitting them hard, hard where it hurts.”
On social media, Mr. Trump expressed his support for the protesters, saying “Iran is looking for FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA is ready to help!!!”
The warnings of Mr. Trump come as unrest throughout the country the challenge the theocracy of Iran fell the two-week mark. At least 538 people have died in the violence surrounding the protests, US-based activists say, with fears that the death toll could be much higher. More than 10,600 people have been arrested, said the Human Rights Activists News Agency.
The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed US officials, first reported on Saturday night that Mr. The WSJ reports that Trump will get some options on Tuesday.
The US has not mobilized any forces to prepare for possible military strikes.
America has many capabilities and options, and cyber attacks can be among them, according to an American official who also confirmed that the Trump administration approves Elon Musk’s decision to make Starlink terminals available in Iran. That satellite-based Internet service could help protesters bypass government restrictions amid ongoing communications blackouts. Starlink did not respond to questions from CBS.
The US already has tough sanctions on the Iranian regime, and in recent weeks has added to them. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Sunday that Mr. Trump has “moral support” for actions in Iran. He declined to answer a question about whether the US would block Iranian oil tankers from trading on the black market.
“I think the people of Iran are standing up because they feel like there’s a strong United States that has their back,” Wright said.
The theocratic rulers of Iran continue to say that the protesters are oppressors influenced by the US and Israel. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on Saturday about the protests and other regional issues, according to US officials.
Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, Speaker of Iran’s Parliament and former president, warned on Sunday that US and Israeli forces would be “legal victims” if the US attacked the Islamic Republic.
“In the event of an attack on Iran, both the attacked areas and all US military facilities, bases and ships in the region will be our legitimate targets,” Qalibaf said, according to the Associated Press. “We do not see ourselves as limited to reacting after the fact and will act based on any warning signs of a threat.”
On Friday, Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, said of X: “Our enemies do not know Iran. In the past, the US failed because of its flawed planning. Even today, its flawed tactics will make them fail.”
There are currently 2,000 US troops stationed in Iraq, stationed at bases that were targeted by Iran-backed militias. There are also US forces throughout the Mideast region, including key locations in Qatar, home of US Central Command, and Bahrain, where the US Navy’s Mideast-based 5th Fleet is stationed.
Back in June, Iran launched a missile strike on Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar in retaliation The US has attacked three Iranian nuclear planes.
Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, who sits on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, said on “Face the Nation” that the action of the US military in Iran now to help the protesters would be “a big mistake.”
“It would have the effect of empowering the Iranian regime that it is the US that is harassing our country,” Kaine said. “Right now, the Iranian people blame, rightly, the regime for harming the country.”
Kaine called for maintaining pressure on the sanctions, noting that they have been successful against the Assad regime in Syria. Last December, armed rebels allied with terrorist groups finally ousted Assad after a 14-year civil war.
“American military action will bring back the painful history of the US overthrowing the Iranian prime minister in the 1950s and will give the regime the power to blame its failures on the United States,” he added.
When we were asked on Sunday whether the protesters shooting could be a “red line” for Mr.
The White House and the US State Department declined to answer questions about specific military options being considered.
The protests began on December 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at more than 1.4 million to $1, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions imposed in part to curb its nuclear program. The protests intensified and escalated into calls challenging Iran’s theocracy.
