President Donald Trump said in Washington on Monday that theUS is 'nowhere near' ordering American ground troops into Iranto secure nuclear material at Isfahan, pushing back on a burst of weekend speculation over whether Donald Trump will invade Iran as part of the widening confrontation over Tehran's nuclear sites.
That speculation did not appear from nowhere.Trump had said last Monday that he would not rule out putting 'boots on the ground' in Iranif they were necessary, and by Saturday several outlets, including Semafor, NBC News and Axios, were reporting that some form of special operations mission was being considered. The result was a familiar Trump fog, half denial, half opening, with the president insisting no decision had been made while refusing to shut the door completely.
Trump's latest formulation was more restrained than his earlier posture, though not exactly reassuring. Asked by theNew York Postabout sending troops to protect highly enriched uranium at an underground facility near Isfahan, he replied,'We haven't made any decision on that. We're nowhere near it.'That is not a flat rejection. It is a holding answer, the kind presidents use when they want room to move later.
He made the comment by phone from Trump National Golf Club in Doral, Florida, while a television played in the background, according to thePost. Hours earlier, he had already tried to cool the story aboard Air Force One, saying the administration had not talked about the possibility, even as reports suggested the option was alive inside government.
uranium in question is said to be enriched to 60 per cent purity, which the source article describes as a relatively short jump from the 90 per cent generally associated with nuclear weapons. That helps explain why Isfahan has become the site everyone circles back to, even after Trump sought to play down the idea of a ground mission.
Trump's other message on Monday was aimed at Tehran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei. He said he was 'not happy' that the 56 year old had replaced his father, Ali Khamenei, over the weekend, but when pressed on what he planned to do about it, he gave little away, saying only, 'Not going to tell you.'
That silence matters becauseTrump has hardly been shy on the subject in recent days. Before Mojtaba Khamenei's appointment, he had warned that any successor who took power without American approval would 'not last long', and he had separately dismissed Khamenei's son as 'a lightweight' in remarks reported by Axios. It is the language of pressure politics, blunt to the point of menace, and it leaves little doubt that personnel in Tehran are being treated by the White House as part of the battlefield.
🚨President Trump issues a warning to Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei:"He’s going to have to get approval from us… If he doesn’t got approval from us, he’s not going to last long."pic.twitter.com/Usb7unIBHp
Mojtaba Khamenei is regarded as a hardliner with close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. His wife, mother and son were killed in the same 28 February airstrike that killed his father.
BREAKING: Huge crowds have gathered today in Revolution Square in Tehran, Iran, pledging allegiance to the new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Mottaba Hosseini Khamenei, a man who is believed to be even more violent, more hateful, and more bound on harming the West than his…pic.twitter.com/iMnmSqaXTi
Source: International Business Times UK
