Iran Issues New Grave Warning to Trump, U.S.

These remarks come amid uncertainty and debate as to the potential U.S. involvement in the conflict and what that might look like moving forward.

Several U.S. Air Force B-2 bombers appeared to have taken off from the Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri in the United States and were headed across the Pacific, according to reporting from the New York Times on Saturday citing flight tracker data. Military equipment is often moved from one base to another, and it's not always indicative of an impending strike. TIME has reached out to the White House for comment and further information.

Trump, who has said that the U.S. has not been involved in the Israeli strikes thus far, has given himself two weeks to make the decision as to whether the U.S. will strike on Iran.

“Based on the fact that there's a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks,” said Trump, in a statement delivered by the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday. Leavitt went on to add that “if there's a chance for diplomacy, the President's always going to grab it, but he's not afraid to use strength as well.”

The U.S. and Iran had long been engaged in talks, in the hope of reaching a nuclear deal.

Officials from both countries were set to meet in Oman's capital of Muscat last weekend for the next round of nuclear discussions. But Oman's Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi announced that, in light of the Israel-Iran active conflict, those talks would no longer be going ahead. This came after state television reported that Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei called nuclear talks with the U.S. “meaningless.”

While Trump has called for Iran to return to the table, Iranian officials appear to be reluctant.

“In order for us to come back to diplomacy, the aggression should be stopped,” Araghchi said on Saturday. “I cannot go to negotiation with the United States when our people are under bombardment, under the support of the United States.”

Trump has stated multiple times in the first months of his second term that a deal with Iran would have to include a ban on the nation enriching uranium—something that would allow them to produce nuclear weapons.

He has also called for something more permanent than a cease-fire.

“We're looking for better than a cease-fire,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on June 17 as he left the G7 summit. “A real end, not a cease-fire. An end… giving up, entirely.”

Trump later doubled down on his view of what Iran should do via a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, writing: “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”

However, Trump has delivered cryptic responses when asked exactly if and how the U.S. might get involved in the Middle Eastern conflict.

On Wednesday, when asked if the U.S. is “moving closer” to striking Iranian nuclear facilities, Trump said: “I may do it, I may not do it, nobody knows what I'm going to do… I can tell you this. Iran’s got a lot of trouble. They want to negotiate. I said, ‘Why didn’t you negotiate with me before? All this death and destruction.'”

He later said in the Oval Office: "I like to make the final decision one second before it's due, because things change, especially with war.”

Meanwhile, Araghchi’s new warning is the latest in a long line of stern words and threats from Iranian officials in regards to a potential U.S. involvement in the current combat.

Too late.

[quote] US has struck three Iranian nuclear sites, Trump says, joining Israeli air campaign

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Saturday that the U.S. military struck three sites in Iran, directly joining Israel ’s effort to decapitate the country's nuclear program in a risky gambit to weaken a longtime foe amid Tehran’s threat of reprisals that could spark a wider regional conflict.

The decision to directly involve the U.S. comes after more than a week of strikes by Israel on Iran that have moved to systematically eradicate the country’s air defenses and offensive missile capabilities, while damaging its nuclear enrichment facilities. But U.S. and Israeli officials have said that American stealth bombers and a 30,000-lb. bunker buster bomb they alone can carry offered the best chance of destroying heavily-fortified sites connected to the Iranian nuclear program buried deep underground.

“We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan," Trump said in a post on social media. "All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home.”

Trump said B-2 stealth bombers were used but did not specify which types of bombs were dropped. The White House and Pentagon did not immediately elaborate on the operation.

The strikes are a perilous decision for the U.S. as Iran has pledged to retaliate if it joined the Israeli assault, and for Trump personally, having won the White House on the promise of keeping America out of costly foreign conflicts and scoffed at the value of American interventionism.

Trump told reporters on Friday that he was not interested in sending ground forces into Iran. He had previously indicated that he would make a final choice over the course of two weeks, a timeline that seemed drawn out as the situation was evolving quickly.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned on Wednesday the United States that strikes targeting the Islamic Republic will “result in irreparable damage for them.” And Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei declared “any American intervention would be a recipe for an all-out war in the region."

Trump has vowed that he would not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon and he had initially hoped that the threat of force would bring the country’s leaders to give up its nuclear program peacefully.

Israel ’s military said Saturday it was preparing for the possibility of a lengthy war, while Iran’s foreign minister warned before the U.S. attack that American military involvement “would be very, very dangerous for everyone.”

The prospect of a wider war threatened, too. Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen said they would resume attacks on U.S. vessels in the Red Sea if the Trump administration joins Israel’s military campaign. The Houthis paused such attacks in May under a deal with the U.S.

OP You should make a dozen more posts about this without bothering to search!

Damn!