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On Friday, US President Donald Trump said that he had halted a "retaliatory" military strike against three sites in Iran just 10 minutes before it was set to be carried out, after deliberating that an estimated 150 Iranians would die in the attack.
US President Donald Trump tweeted that reports regarding his decision not to conduct a military strike against Iran were misleading, claiming that he never said he had "called the strike against Iran BACK," but rather "just stopped it from going forward at this time."
The statement comes following the president's
announcement of new "major additional Sanctions on Iran," slated to take effect on Monday.
On Thursday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) downed a US RQ-4 spy drone that Tehran claimed was operating in Iran airspace, a statement dismissed by the US.
Following Thursday's downing of the surveillance drone, a US military strike against a series of Iranian targets, including radar and missile batteries, was reportedly ordered.
Comment: That sure clarifies things! Maybe we should start calling him President Rorschach. Is he saying he didn't give an initial authorization and only stopped the plan from proceeding when he was told about it (i.e., he didn't "change his mind")? Or is he trying to keep up the Bolton-esque pressure by implying that the U.S. can still launch such an attack at any time in the future? Both? Neither?
On Friday, Trump told NBC's Chuck Todd that he
doesn't want war, but if it comes, there will be obliteration:
President Donald Trump said Friday that he doesn't want war with Iran, but if it comes there will be "obliteration like you've never seen before."
"But I'm not looking to do that," the president added in an exclusive interview with NBC's Chuck Todd for "Meet the Press."
Trump said there were no pre-conditions for U.S. talks with Tehran.
"You can't have nuclear weapons," Trump said. "And if you want to talk about it, good. Otherwise, you can live in a shattered economy for a long time to come."
He also did a slightly better job of clarifying the White House version of events for the aborted strike:
Asked if planes were in the air, the president responded, "No, but they would have been pretty soon, and things would have happened to a point where you would not turn back, you could not turn back."
"Nothing was green lighted until the very end because things change," Trump said during the interview with Todd.
...
He told NBC on Friday that a plan was "ready to go, subject my approval."
That would seem to imply that he did NOT initially approve the plan, and it was only when it was brought to him that he decided against it. Whether any of that is true or not is of course another story. For example, see:
Elijah Magnier: Trump and Iran on edge of the abyssApparently Trump "
agonized" over the decision:
In an interview with CNN's The Situation Room, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman James Risch has disclosed that Donald Trump is a president who "doesn't want to go to war" and revealed the commander-in-chief's hesitations on strikes against Iran.
"I really watched him agonise over this. It comes down to one man", Risch told reporters.
Risch was not the only person to have observed how hard it was for Trump to make a decision; House Armed Services Chairman Adam Smith also said that the president was "really wrestling with it".
While the head of state struggled with his own dilemma, this uncertainty was fuelled by his own national security team, who unanimously believed that Washington should retaliate for the downed US drone by hitting Iranian targets, CNN reported.
"There was complete unanimity amongst the President's advisers and DOD leadership on an appropriate response to Iran's activities. The President made the final decision", an unnamed senior administration official was quoted as saying.
Here's Bernie Sanders's take on the whole situation:
Sanders argued that it was Trump's fault that the situation has flared up to the point that he had to hit the brakes.
"It's like somebody setting fire to a basket full of paper and then putting it out. He helped create the crisis, and then he stopped the attacks."
On this, he is not wrong!
As for obliteration, Iranian armed forces general staff spokesman Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi told Tasnim News Agency
yesterday that "Firing one bullet towards Iran will set fire to the interests of America and its allies" in the Middle East:
"The Islamic Republic has never and will never start any wars," Shekarchi added, stressing that "if the enemy commits the smallest of mistakes, it will face the biggest revolutionary reaction from Iran in Central and West Asia, and it will certainly not survive the battle. If the enemy fires one shot in our direction, we will fire ten back."
And regarding the downing of the drone that started this latest news cycle, there's this to consider:
Brigadier General Amirali Hajizadeh, who heads the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Aerospace Force,
added: "If such aggression is repeated, we will add other US [military] products to complete this collection."
See also:
Comment: That sure clarifies things! Maybe we should start calling him President Rorschach. Is he saying he didn't give an initial authorization and only stopped the plan from proceeding when he was told about it (i.e., he didn't "change his mind")? Or is he trying to keep up the Bolton-esque pressure by implying that the U.S. can still launch such an attack at any time in the future? Both? Neither?
On Friday, Trump told NBC's Chuck Todd that he doesn't want war, but if it comes, there will be obliteration: He also did a slightly better job of clarifying the White House version of events for the aborted strike: That would seem to imply that he did NOT initially approve the plan, and it was only when it was brought to him that he decided against it. Whether any of that is true or not is of course another story. For example, see: Elijah Magnier: Trump and Iran on edge of the abyss
Apparently Trump "agonized" over the decision: Here's Bernie Sanders's take on the whole situation: On this, he is not wrong!
As for obliteration, Iranian armed forces general staff spokesman Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi told Tasnim News Agency yesterday that "Firing one bullet towards Iran will set fire to the interests of America and its allies" in the Middle East: And regarding the downing of the drone that started this latest news cycle, there's this to consider:
Brigadier General Amirali Hajizadeh, who heads the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Aerospace Force, added: "If such aggression is repeated, we will add other US [military] products to complete this collection."
See also: