Update(1232ET): President Trump has very quickly followed up with even more bellicose and alarming statements directly threatening Iran, repeatedly using 'we' - as if the United States military is already directly involved in the ratcheting war. He said in the latest:
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. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Are we witnessing the start of another regime change war in the Middle East - and with no Congressional input or authorization whatsoever?
Or is this all one big game of [nuclear] chicken, where the hope is that Iran will suddenly raise the white flag? Trump is now suggesting that Israel and the US could go all in until there's nothing short of "unconditional surrender!"...
The escalatory and jingoistic rhetoric could also be because Washington is certainly not used to seeing Israeli cities get pummeled by Iranian hypersonic and ballistic missiles.
Meanwhile, when did Merz become the US State Dept?
GERMAN CHANCELLOR MERZ: THE UNITED STATES WILL DECIDE TODAY WHETHER OR
NOT TO JOIN THE IRAN CONFLICT... DECISION DEPENDS ON WHETHER IRAN
NEGOTIATES
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Update(1215): While Trump is of course known for verbally shooting from the hip, and is often loose or imprecise with his terms, this is certainly cause for alarm, amid speculation that the US is quickly deepening its involvement in the Israel-Iran war, and yet with no Congressional war authorization or debate.
TRUMP SAYS 'WE' NOW HAVE 'TOTAL CONTROL' OF SKIES OVER IRAN
Is this confirmation of Pentagon direct involvement at this point? Or was this just loosely referring to Israel as an ally?
Whatever the case, this doesn't bode well in terms of America's possible future direct entry, as Trump has vowed to never allow Iran to have nuclear weapons.
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As tensions soar and Americans anxiously contemplate the possibility of yet another major US war in the Middle East, the Trump administration has been in contact with the Iranian government, discussing a possible meeting this week between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US envoy Steve Witkoff, Axios reports, citing "four sources briefed on the issue."
The outlet also says Trump officials reassured Middle East allies that the administration doesn't plan to join the war unless Americans are targeted -- a clear red line that incentivizes Israel to find a way to drag Iran across it, or to fabricate an incident altogether, much as Israel did in 1954's famed "Lavon Affair" and perhaps its 1967 attack on the USS Liberty. An Arab diplomat in deep contact with Iran says the red line is already very much in mind in Tehran: "The Iranians are very careful so far not to do anything that can push the U.S. to get involved."
Following those reports, Iran over Monday night pared back the pace of its heavy bombardment of Israel, after consecutive nights of deadly, damaging strikes demonstrating the power of Iran's hypersonic missiles. In a new twist, however, Iran hit Israel with a daylight barrage on Tuesday morning -- albeit one that was reportedly modest in volume, perhaps only 20 missiles. Of course, there's nothing modest about it if you happen to be in one of the impact areas:
Earlier on Monday, Israel struck various targets in Iran, including the state-run television network IRIB in mid-broadcast (though it quickly resumed broadcasting with the same host). The IDF also claimed it killed a highly senior Iranian general who himself succeeded another general assassinated in Israel's opening of the war.
The Axios reports come in stark contrast to a stream of bellicose rhetoric emanating from Trump, along with potentially ominous moves of US military assets. On Monday, Trump used social media to say that "everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!" Also yesterday, Fox News reported that the USS Nimitz-led aircraft carrier group was steaming toward the Middle East from the South China Sea, where it will join the already on-station USS Carl Vinson strike group. At the same time, a large number of military refueling aircraft were being deployed to Europe.
Even if the reports of US diplomatic outreach are true, from Iran's perspective, little or nothing the Trump administration says can be trusted, and even ostensibly peaceful overtures must be evaluated as a potential tactic to set up a surprise US strike. After all, Israel's initiation of a war on Iran came two days before American and Iranian delegations were scheduled to meet in Oman for a sixth round of discussions pursuant to a new deal about Iran's nuclear program. Since Israel's attack, Trump has repeatedly stated that he knew about it in advance, saying for example that "We were well-informed about everything," and "I always knew the date."
Here's what one official told Axios about the pursuit of a new meeting:
"A meeting with the Iranians this week is under consideration...They do want to talk. But what we don't know is, have they been brought to their knees fully so that they realize that in order to have a country, they have to talk? And assuming they get there, is there any degree of [uranium] enrichment you would allow them to have?"
The suggestion that Iran is anywhere close to being "on its knees" seems fanciful, considering Iran has launched multiple missile barrages, the effects of which have significantly exceeded expectations. Two dozen Israelis have been killed and at least 400 injured, with the country also enduring major hits to government buildings, apartment towers and power plants. The starring role in those barrages has been played by Iran's highly advanced hypersonic missiles -- a weapon that neither Israel nor even the United States has in its arsenal:
The unnamed official's rhetorical question about whether there's "any amount of enrichment" the US would allow may offer a glimmer of hope for an end to the Israel-initiated war. Iran sees enrichment as a right it possesses as a sovereign state, and has repeatedly said an outright ban on enrichment is completely out of the question. Iran has long been under a religious order, or "fatwa," forbidding the development of any weapon of mass destruction, and the country has long assured the world that it has no intention of building a nuclear weapon -- an assurance the US intelligence community validated in 2007 and has repeatedly re-confirmed since then -- most recently, just this March. Meanwhile, anti-Iran hawks have been warning of an imminent Iranian nuclear bomb for more than three decades:
The seeds of today's crisis were sown in May 2018, when Trump withdrew the United States from the nuclear deal that had been negotiated between Iran and various Western governments and signed in 2015. Under that deal, Iran agreed to a wide array of safeguards. They included eliminating its medium-enriched uranium, reducing its low-enriched uranium inventory by 98%, capping future enrichment at 3.67%, slashing its number of centrifuges, submitting to enhanced external monitoring and rendering its heavy-water reactor unusable by pouring concrete in it. At the time of Trump's withdrawal, Iran was in full compliance, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. In response to the re-imposition of US sanctions, Iran began straying from the deal's terms, seemingly pushing the only lever it had to bring the deal back and get out from under sanctions that have sapped Iran's economy and inflicted a cruel toll on innocent Iranian citizens.
The 2015 deal was so thorough that Trump's pursuit of a new agreement puts him in the awkward position of finding a way to differentiate it from the one he repeatedly railed against on the 2016 campaign trail, and again as he killed it. Iran hawks have been pushing for a deal that bans nuclear enrichment altogether. Some may take that position out of sincere concern, but the most powerful hawks in Israel and America certainly take it with full knowledge that Iran will never accept it, helping pave the way for the US-led war they've long yearned for.
Indeed, soon after Israel's war on Iran began, Israel and its US-based collaborators began pressing Trump to commit the American military to the fight -- in defiance of his campaign promises to end the era of endless US wars. Trump needn't burden himself with that decision: The US Constitution vests the power to initiate war with Congress.
