Donald Trump and Iran’s Supreme Leader

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Iran’s Doctors Deal With “A Bloodbath” After Israel’s Strikes

EA-Times Radio VideoCast: The Myth of the US-UK Trade Deal, Trump’s G7 Walkout, and How Israel Played Donald as It Tries to Break Iran’s Leaders

Israel Calls for Tehran Evacuation; Trump Bails Out of G7 Summit

UPDATE 2132 GMT:

Donald Trump has told senior aides that he approved of attack plans for Iran, but is holding off to see if Tehran will abandon its nuclear program, say “people familiar with the deliberations”.

UPDATE 1820 GMT:

Israeli officials say they expect the Trump Administration to join their military operations soon.

“We would be very surprised if the Americans don’t join the offensive. We assess that it’s not a question of if — but of when,” said “two senior Israeli sources”.

[Trump] wants to build on the achievements made so far, and his instincts tell him this is an opportunity to join the attack from a clearly advantageous position

We assess that it’s hard to see him pulling back at this stage. Mentally, he’s in attack mode — not isolationism. Something truly exceptional would have to happen for him not to join.

Another official said Israel expects the US to help Israel attack Iran’s Fordoo uranium facility, buried deep inside a mountain.

In his latest statement, Donald Trump said Iran reached out to him for a meeting — a claim denied by Tehran — and declared, “It’s very late to be talking….There’s a big difference between now and a week ago. Nobody knows what I’m going to do.”

Trump said he is not interested in a ceasefire but in “total and complete victory”: “I’m not looking to fight, but if it’s a choice between fighting and having a nuclear weapon, you have to do what you have to do. Maybe we won’t have to fight. Maybe it will end very quickly.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an address to the nation, thanked Trump for “standing by our side”.

“We are in continuous communication, including last night — we had a very warm conversation,” Netanyahu effused.

UPDATE 1404 GMT:

Amid extensive Israel strikes on Tehran today, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz claims fighter jets just “destroyed the headquarters of the Iranian regime’s internal security, the main arm of the Iranian dictator’s oppression”.

UPDATE 1357 GMT:

The Israel Defense Forces say Iran has launched more than 400 ballistic missiles and around 1,000 drones at Israel since Friday.

The IDF claimed just over 20 missiles caused casualties and extensive damage in urban areas. Twenty-four people have been killed and more than 500 wounded.

Military officials said the casualty figures are far below than those anticipated by the IDF.

They said fewer than 200 drones entered Israeli airspace, and all were intercepted.

UPDATE 1134 GMT:

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Israel has struck two facilities in Iran that make parts for uranium centrifuges, the TESA Karaj workshop and the Tehran Research Center.

UPDATE 1059 GMT:

Iran’s Supreme Leader is maintaining his defiance, tweeting early Wednesday morning:

In a televised message later in the day, Ayatollah Khamenei asserted that the Iranian nation will “firmly stand against an imposed war”.

Intelligent people who know Iran, the Iranian nation, and its history will never speak to this nation in threatening language because the Iranian nation will not surrender.

He reacted to reports of Donald Trump considering US military operations alongside the Israelis:

The Americans should know that any US military intervention will undoubtedly be accompanied by irreparable damage….

The President of America in an unacceptable statement explicitly urged Iranians to surrender but we tell him: first threaten those who are afraid of being threatened. Threats will not affect the thinking and behaviour of the Iranian nation.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Donald Trump is evaluating whether he will order the US to join Israel’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, say “multiple current and former administration officials”.

On Tuesday, amid a day of his bluster on social media, Trump met national security advisors in the White House Situation Room. The officials briefed US media afterwards that Washington might enter the war against Tehran, only days after the Trump Administration was in negotiations with Iran over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.

While attacking Iranian nuclear sites and killing its nuclear scientists as well as military commanders, top officials, and civilians, Israel needs the American “bunker buster” bombs to reach Iran’s Fordoo uranium enrichment complex, which is built into a mountain.

“We are waiting for the decision of the President,” said a senior Israeli official. Two officials added that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hopes Trump offers support of his own accord, rather than having to pressure the reality TV star into it.

Trump started Tuesday by walking out of a G7 meeting in Canada and, insulting Emmanuel Macron, rejecting the collective effort for a ceasefire. He boomed, “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!” And he dismissed the US intelligence assessment, bolstered by the conclusion of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon.

In the afternoon, he raised the possibility of assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader, a day after purportedly rejecting an Israeli approach for approval.

We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there — We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now.

But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin.

He added in another post, “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!

Trump also retweeted a fawning message from the US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, which could be read as urging a nuclear attack on Iran.

Huckabee, a Christian Zionist, declared that “God spared” Trump from assassination to be the “most consequential President in history”.

He then tried to “encourage” Trump by declaring, “No President in my lifetime has been in a position like yours. Not since Truman in 1945.”

In August 1945, President Harry Truman approved the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan, contributing to the end of World War II.

Vice President J.D. Vance reinforced the prospect of US involvement alongside Israel, “[Trump] may decide he needs to take further action to end Iranian enrichment. That decision ultimately belongs to the President.”

Vance then met Republican senators behind closed doors.

Macron Warns of “The Biggest Mistake”

European leaders warned of escalation by the Americans and Israelis, albeit with different emphases.

German chancellor Friedrich Merz put the onus on Tehran: “If Iran does not back down, complete destruction of Iranian nuclear programme is on the agenda, which Israel cannot achieve alone.”

France’s Macron looked at Washington and Tel Aviv:

We recognize Israel’s right to self-defense, but we do not support actions that threaten stability in the region. The biggest mistake that can be made today is to try to change the regime in Iran by military means – because that would lead to chaos.

And UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer took another line, playing down any possibility of US military operations.

There’s nothing the president said that suggests that he’s about to get involved in this conflict. On the contrary, the G7 statement was about de-escalation….I was sitting right next to President Trump [at the dinner], so I’ve no doubt, in my mind, the level of agreement.

Meanwhile, Israel’s military boasted that it had knocked out Iran’s air defenses. On Wednesday morning, the Israel Defense Forces said they attacked “a centrifuge production site and several weapons manufacturing sites” overnight.

Over 50 Air Force fighter jets, guided by precise intelligence from the Intelligence Directorate, completed a series of strikes on military targets in the Tehran area in recent hours.

During the wave of attacks, several weapons manufacturing sites were targeted. Among the weapons production facilities attacked was a site for producing raw materials and components for assembling surface-to-surface missiles that the Iranian regime has launched and continues to launch toward the State of Israel.