Trump’s Iran intervention claims are ‘escalatory rhetoric’ says former U.S. diplomat
U.S. President Donald Trump threatened on Friday to come to the aid of protesters in Iran if security forces fired on them, days into unrest that has left several dead and posed the biggest internal threat to Iranian authorities in years.
“We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” he said in a social media post. The United States bombed Iranian nuclear facilities in June, joining an Israeli air campaign that targeted Tehran’s atomic programme and military leadership.
Responding to Trump’s comments, top Iranian official Ali Larijani warned that U.S. interference in domestic Iranian issues would amount to a destabilisation of the entire Middle East. Iran backs proxy forces in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.
The comments came as a local official in western Iran, where several deaths were reported, was cited by state media as warning that any unrest or illegal gatherings would be met “decisively and without leniency”. [Continue reading…]