Trump hints at possibility of US targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities: 'I may do it. I may not do it'
WASHINGTON, DC: President Donald Trump is keeping everyone guessing about whether he will greenlight a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Speaking to reporters outside the White House on Wednesday, June 18, Trump made it clear that nothing was off the table.
“Yes, I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do,” he said. “I can tell you this — that Iran's got a lot of trouble, and they want to negotiate.”
According to Trump, Iran’s capital, Tehran, is now feeling the heat after ditching a planned sit-down that was supposed to happen Sunday.
"And I said, why didn't you negotiate with me before all this death and destruction?” he asked. “Why didn't you go? I said to people, why didn't you negotiate with me two weeks ago? You could have done fine. You would have had a country. It's very sad to watch this.”
Donald Trump issues Iran 'the ultimate ultimatum'
Donald Trump brought the receipts. He reminded everyone that he's been warning about Iran’s nuclear ambitions for years, Fox News reported.
"This is just not a threat you can have. And we've been threatened by Iran for many years," he said on Wednesday. "You know, if you go back and look at my history, if you go back 15 years, I was saying we cannot let Iran get a nuclear weapon. I've been saying it for a long time."
Now, he says he's laid it all out on the table for Iran. “Maybe you could call it the ultimate — the ultimate ultimatum, right?” he quipped.
Even though the two countries were supposed to hold nuclear talks in Oman on Sunday, Iran backed out on Friday. That’s not sitting well with Trump, who insists he’s not bluffing about military consequences if they don’t return to the negotiating table.
Israel strikes first, Iran hits back
While Donald Trump played coy about whether he’ll get the US involved militarily, the region itself has already erupted into conflict. On Thursday, Israel launched massive airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear sites, claiming they took out several high-ranking Iranian military leaders.
Iran didn’t take that lying down. In response, Tehran launched its own attacks against Israel.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio tried to play it cool initially, telling the press that the US wasn’t part of the Israeli strikes.
But Trump later told Reuters that he knew about the attacks beforehand.
Tehran warns the US
Iran has already issued a very clear warning if Trump decides to take the plunge, ultimately.
“Any American intervention would be a recipe for an all-out war in the region,” said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei during an interview with Al Jazeera English.
While Trump hasn’t pressed the proverbial red button yet, he has been slowly cranking up the economic pressure.
Back in February, he signed an executive order directing the Treasury Department to go all out with sanctions aimed at crippling Iran’s oil exports — calling it a campaign of “maximum economic pressure.”
