Iran’s Gulf rivals warn U.S. against strike on Tehran
The Wall Street Journal reports:
Iran’s Arab rivals across the Persian Gulf, led by Saudi Arabia, have been lobbying the Trump administration against a strike on Tehran, after the U.S. warned them to be prepared for such an attack.
In public, Arab Gulf states have largely kept silent as protests have spread across the neighboring Islamic Republic and human-rights groups said thousands have died in the regime’s crackdown.
But behind the scenes, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar are telling the White House that an attempt to topple the Iranian regime would rattle oil markets and ultimately hurt the U.S. economy, according to Arab Gulf officials. Most of all, they fear the blowback at home.
The Trump administration hasn’t made clear what type of military action it is planning against Iran, but has said an attack is more likely than not, the officials said.
A White House official said all options were at President Trump’s disposal to address the situation in Iran. “The president listens to a host of opinions on any given issue, but ultimately makes the decision he feels is best,” the official said.
Trump on Tuesday made a direct appeal to Iranian protesters, calling on them to defy regime efforts to quell their demonstrations and urging them to take over state institutions. “HELP IS ON ITS WAY,” he posted on his Truth Social platform.
Arab states fear strikes on Iran risk disrupting oil tankers moving through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway at the mouth of the Persian Gulf that divides Iran from its Arab neighbors and through which passes around a fifth of the world’s oil shipments.
Saudi officials have assured Tehran that they wouldn’t get involved in a potential conflict or allow the U.S. to use their airspace for strikes, in an effort to distance themselves from and stave off U.S. action, according to Saudi officials. [Continue reading…]
President Donald Trump announced that Iran had stopped killing anti-government protesters after he threatened to take action if the killings continued.
“We’ve been told that the killing in Iran is stopping and there’s no plans for executions,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
Trump’s announcement came after days of escalating tension between the United States and Iran. [Continue reading…]
A man arrested in connection with the current wave of protests in Iran has been sentenced to death and told he faces execution, his family and a human rights group say.
Erfan Soltani, 26, was arrested last Thursday in the city of Fardis, just west of Tehran. Days later, authorities informed his family his execution had been scheduled for Wednesday without giving any additional details, according to Norway-based Kurdish human rights group Hengaw.
On Wednesday, Hengaw said it had “serious and ongoing concerns regarding Soltani’s right to life” but that, according to information obtained through relatives, his execution had been postponed. [Continue reading…]
One man is covered with a bloody white shroud inside a body bag. Another lies nearby, his body sprawled on the tiled floor with arms raised and blood streaked across the face.
Row upon row of other bodies surround them.
“It’s horrifying. It’s the apocalypse,” says the man filming the scene in the warehouse of a forensics center near Tehran. “There are lots of bodies.”
Iran has been largely shut off from the rest of the world for days, since its regime cut the internet and severely restricted phone access after cities across the country erupted in anger sparked by the crash of the currency against the U.S. dollar and soaring inflation. Videos that have trickled out and circulated online offer a window into the resulting crackdown in the Islamic Republic and the methods employed by security forces to quell the unrest.
The images, circulated on social media this week and geolocated by NBC News, show more than 200 bodies piled in the makeshift morgue outside the capital, machine guns fired at crowds, and clashes in cities from Urmia in the northwest to Isfahan in the heart of the country.
At least 2,500 people have been killed, according to the the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. Authorities have not given an official death toll. [Continue reading…]