Fears of US attack rise as president says Tehran can either negotiate ‘a fair and equitable deal’ or face a US ‘armada’.
President Donald Trump has revived a threat that the United States is ready to launch a military attack against Iran as he demands Tehran make a deal over its nuclear programme.
“A massive Armada is heading to Iran. It is moving quickly, with great power, enthusiasm, and purpose,” he said in a lengthy post on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday.
The US president added that “hopefully Iran will quickly ‘Come to the Table’ and negotiate a fair and equitable deal – NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS – one that is good for all parties. Time is running out, it is truly of the essence! As I told Iran once before, MAKE A DEAL!”
In an apparent reference to the US bombing of three of Iran’s nuclear facilities in June, the US president warned that should Tehran fail to agree a deal, the next attack would be “far worse”.
Trump’s outburst came shortly after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said his country would not restart negotiations while it is being threatened with an attack.
Araghchi insisted that Iran has not sought to restart negotiations and would not do so while the threats persist.
“There was no contact between me and [US envoy Steve] Witkoff in recent days, and no request for negotiations was made from us,” Araghchi told state media.
“Our stance is clear: Negotiations don’t go along with threats, and talks can only take place when there are no longer menaces and excessive demands,” he said.
Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem said that behind the US’s public threats, much was going on behind closed doors as mediators sought to find a solution to the crisis.
“It seems a lot is going on on the diplomatic side,” he said. “Mediators are trying their best to come up with a solution because the situation right now is really very serious.”
Publicly, Iran was signalling its readiness to fight, Hashem added, but also its readiness to talk “whenever the negotiations are proper” and not enforced on them through military threat.
‘Show of power’
Wednesday’s tensions came after the Trump administration moved the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier to the region, spurring fears of a military confrontation.
Adnan Hayajneh, a professor of international relations at Qatar University, said that move was a “show of power” by Washington intended to send a message to Tehran “that if you cannot follow exactly what we want, we will let the missiles fly”.
He said it remained to be seen whether the US would choose the path of diplomacy or military action but the threats were “the American way of convincing [Iran] to come to the table”.
Washington wants to put a halt to the Iranian nuclear and missile programmes, which pose a challenge to Israeli hegemony in the region, and is seeking to do so while Tehran is weak domestically, regionally and internationally, Hayajneh said.
Regarding Iran’s defiant rhetoric in response to the US threats, he said Tehran had struck a similar tone during last year’s war with Israel, in which the US participated.
“At the end of the day, they did not deliver,” he said. “Israel was controlling the skies.”
Trump has repeatedly indicated that he is considering ordering military action in response to Tehran’s crackdown on antigovernment protests this month, raising tension across the region.
Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, had said earlier this month that Iran was ready for war if Washington wanted to “test” it.
Earlier this week, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian hit out against the latest US “threats”, saying they were “aimed at disrupting the security of the region and will achieve nothing other than instability”.
Nevertheless, speaking to Al Jazeera on Wednesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan suggested “Iran is ready to negotiate a nuclear file again”.
Iran nuclear programme
In June, as indirect negotiations on the Iranian nuclear programme were under way, the US joined Israel in its 12-day war on Iran by bombing three of its main nuclear facilities.
The bombings killed 430 people and Iranian officials have promised to launch a “comprehensive and regret-inducing response” if attacked again.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that last year’s US attacks “obliterated” the Iranian nuclear programme, which Western nations and international institutions worry is aimed at developing nuclear weapons.
However, Tehran insists the programme has strictly civilian purposes and it has the right to carry out the enrichment of uranium.
The whereabouts of the country’s highly enriched uranium have remained unknown since the June attacks.
Meanwhile, the US continues to ramp up the pressure on Iran by focusing its rhetoric on recent antigovernment protests, in which thousands of people are reported to have been killed.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said it has confirmed at least 6,221 deaths, including at least 5,858 protesters, and is investigating 12,904 others.
The United Nations special rapporteur on Iran, Mai Sato, has said the death toll could reach 20,000 or more as reports from doctors inside Iran emerge.
Iran’s government has put the death toll at 3,117, saying 2,427 were civilians and security forces and labelling the rest as “terrorists”.
Al Jazeera has been unable to independently verify the figures.
Trump has in the past laid down two red lines for launching an attack: the killing of peaceful demonstrators and the possible mass execution of detainees.
Regional tensions
The threat of military action has raised tensions across the region. Iran has pledged to retaliate against any US strike with attacks on bases in the region that host US forces.
Both Tehran and the US Air Force have announced military drills near the Strait of Hormuz while Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has warned that neighbouring countries would be “considered hostile” if their territory is used by the US during any attack.
In June, Tehran responded to the bombing of its nuclear facilities with an attack on US forces stationed at the Al Udeid airbase in Qatar.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which both host US forces, have signalled they will not allow their airspace to be used for any attack.
The tension has also provoked a diplomatic whirlwind in the region.
On Wednesday, Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said its top diplomat, Badr Abdelatty, had spoken with Araghchi and Witkoff separately in a bid to “work toward achieving calm, in order to avoid the region slipping into new cycles of instability”.
However, Hayajneh, the Qatar University professor, said the calls for de-escalation from regional actors were unlikely to play a major role in influencing US decisions on whether it would strike Iran.
“[Trump] doesn’t really care about regional actors,” he said. “At the end of the day, he listens to himself.”
SOURCE: AL jAZEERA & AGENCIES
