After Venezuela,? Donald Trump has confirmed that he is considering some type of action in the country where he is, and maintains that Tehran wants to negotiate. His Administration is considering different options for a possible intervention in support of the demonstrators protesting against the regime, something that he himself confirmed this Sunday: “it seems that people are dying who should not die… we are analyzing it very seriously, the military is analyzing it and we are seeing very strong options,” he declared on board the Air Force One plane.
Asked by the journalists who accompanied him upon his return to Washington after spending the weekend at his private residence in Florida, Mar-a-Lago, Trump assured that, after his threats in recent days about a possible military operation, the Iranian authorities have been in contact and “want to negotiate.” According to him, it is possible that a meeting will be held.
Trump is scheduled to participate in a briefing with his national security team on Tuesday. In it, his advisors will propose possible responses to the situation after the death of protesters.
“I am receiving reports every hour. We are going to make a decision,” said Trump, who on Saturday had already pointed out on social networks the possibility that the US Government could “help” in favor of “freedom” in Iran. The president has confirmed that he is in contact with representatives of the opposition to the Islamic regime abroad.
Although the protests in Iran broke out at the end of December, the US president has been speaking out with increasingly blunt statements since the eve of the US military operation in Caracas and its surroundings on the 3rd, during which he kidnapped the Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, making it clear that he is very seriously considering the possibility of intervening in favor of the protesters mobilized first against the economic situation and now against the Iranian regime. Meanwhile, the Iranian authorities warn that they will repress “with the greatest force” protests where hundreds of protesters have already died.
In a , Truth, on Saturday, Trump wrote a text as brief as it was ominous. “Iran sets its sights on FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. America is ready to help!” It was his second warning about the protests in less than 24 hours: in statements during a meeting with oil businessmen at the White House to discuss the energy sector in Venezuela, he warned Tehran against any attempt to repress those mobilized.
“If they start killing people like they have done in the past, we will get involved. We will hit them very hard where it hurts. And that doesn’t mean sending troops, it means hitting them where it hurts,” he declared then. “Iran is in a big mess,” he said. Trump is this weekend at his private residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, and plans to return to Washington this evening for a week in which he also has, among other activities, receiving the leader of the Venezuelan opposition, María Corina Machado, at the White House.
Photo: NEIL HALL (EFE)
According to him, the White House tenant plans to discuss a possible series of steps in Tuesday’s session, which would range from military attacks or cyber attacks against military facilities to the imposition of new economic sanctions against the regime and greater support from opposition voices on social networks. Other media outlets point out that Trump has already had a series of similar conversations in recent days, although .
The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, spoke by telephone on Saturday with the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, one of the most insistent voices in favor of punitive measures against the regime of the Ayatollahs in Tehran, according to the newspaper The New York Times. The two politicians addressed the situation in Iran and the war in Gaza. The conversation continued the meeting held in December between the Israeli leader and Trump himself at the American’s private residence in Florida, Mar-a-Lago, where both discussed the Iranian nuclear program.
The United States “supports the brave people of Iran,” Rubio, the factotum of US diplomacy, wrote on social media on Saturday, who combines the position of Secretary of State, National Security Advisor and the coordination of US protection of the government of Venezuela, among other positions. On Friday, the State Department had also joined the warnings. A video was posted on the social network
Demonstrations in Iran began last December in reaction to the devaluation of the local currency, the rial. Since then they have risen to demand changes in the regime, which resorts to a heavy hand and maintains, as its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declares, that “it will not back down.”
According to several NGOs, the protests have already left several hundred dead and thousands arrested. The American human rights organization HRANA declares that it has verified the deaths of 490 protesters and 48 security agents, while the number of detainees after two weeks of unrest now exceeds 10,600.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohamed Baqer Qalibaf warned on Sunday that if his country is ultimately attacked by the United States, Tehran could respond with blows against the United States, Israel and key maritime trade routes.
The United States already attacked Iran in June, when Operation Midnight Hammer bombed the main facilities of that Middle Eastern country’s nuclear program. When explaining that action, Trump endorsed Netanyahu’s argument, who repeated left and right that Tehran was one step away from acquiring the nuclear bomb. It was an argument that the United States’ own intelligence services had discarded: in March, the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, had declared before Congress that Tehran was not seeking to build nuclear weapons. “You’re wrong,” Trump had responded.
A new action by the United States in Iran risks triggering an effect contrary to what was expected, and fostering a wave of nationalism among the population that supports the regime, instead of causing its fall. In Iran, Washington’s intervention in 1953 is still not forgotten, when a coup encouraged by the CIA overthrew democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. Mossadegh had announced plans to nationalize the Iranian oil sector, dominated by American companies, and invest the proceeds in national development. The death of the prime minister opened the door to the regime of Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlevi, deposed by Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic revolution in 1979.
