Iran's military warns US of heavy consequences for entering war on Israel's side
Recent hostile action by the United States expanded the scope of legitimate targets for Iran's armed forces, a spokesperson for its Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said in a video shared on Monday.
Ebrahim Zolfaqari said the U.S. should expect heavy consequences for its actions. "Mr. Trump, the gambler, you may start this war, but we will be the ones to end it," Zolfaqari said in English at the end of his recorded statement.
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Observer
4 hours ago
- Observer
Iran issues stark warning to Trump 'the gambler': We will end this war
ISTANBUL/WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM: Iran said on Monday that the U.S. attack on its nuclear sites expanded the range of legitimate targets for its armed forces and called U.S. President Donald Trump a "gambler" for joining Israel's military campaign against the Islamic Republic. Ebrahim Zolfaqari, spokesperson for Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya central military headquarters, said the U.S. should expect heavy consequences for its actions. "Mr Trump, the gambler, you may start this war, but we will be the ones to end it," Zolfaqari said in English at the end of a recorded video statement. Iran and Israel traded air and missile strikes as the world braced for Tehran's response to the U.S. attack on its nuclear sites over the weekend, which Trump suggested could lead to the overthrow of the Iranian government. Commercial satellite imagery indicated Saturday's attack on Iran's Fordow nuclear plant far underground had severely damaged or destroyed the site and the uranium-enriching centrifuges it housed, but its status remained unconfirmed, experts said. In his latest social media comments on the U.S. strikes, Trump said: "Monumental Damage was done to all Nuclear sites in Iran." "The biggest damage took place far below ground level. Bullseye!!!" he wrote on his Truth Social platform. Trump earlier called on Iran to forgo any retaliation and said the government "must now make peace" or future attacks would be "far greater and a lot easier", fuelling global concern about further escalation of conflict in the Middle East. The U.S. launched 75 precision-guided munitions including bunker-buster bombs and more than two dozen Tomahawk missiles against three Iranian nuclear sites, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, told reporters. The U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said no increases in off-site radiation levels had been reported after the U.S. strikes. Rafael Grossi, the agency's director general, told CNN that it was not yet possible to assess the damage done underground. A senior Iranian source told Reuters that most of the highly enriched uranium at Fordow had been moved elsewhere before the attack. Reuters could not immediately corroborate the claim. Tehran, which denies its nuclear programme is for anything other than peaceful purposes, launched a volley of missiles towards Israel in the aftermath of the U.S. attack, wounding scores of people and destroying buildings in Tel Aviv. But it has not acted on its main options for retaliation, to attack U.S. bases or choke off the 20% of global oil shipments that pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Attempting to strangle the strait could send global oil prices skyrocketing, derail the world economy and invite conflict with the U.S. Navy's massive Fifth Fleet based in nearby Bahrain. Oil prices jumped on Monday to their highest since January. Brent crude futures were up $1.11 or 1.44% to $78.12 a barrel as of 0653 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude advanced $1.08 or 1.45% to $74.87.
Observer
6 hours ago
- Observer
How the attacks on Iran are part of a much bigger global struggle
There are so many things to say in the wake of the US bombing of three key Iranian nuclear facilities that it is easy to get lost in the gripping details. So for now, let me try to step back and explore the global, regional and local forces shaping this story. What's really going on here? It is a very, very big drama, and it is not confined to the Middle East. To my mind, Vladimir Putin's war of Ukraine in 2022, with the sole aim of wiping its democracy off the map and absorbing it into Russia, and the attacks on Israel in 2023 by Hamas and friendly nations in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq were manifestations of a global struggle between the forces of inclusion and the forces of resistance. That is a struggle between countries and leaders who see the world and their nations benefiting from more trade, more cooperation against global threats and more decent, if not democratic, governance — versus regimes whose leaders thrive on resisting those trends because conflict enables them to keep their people down, their armies strong and their thieving of their treasuries easy. The forces of inclusion had steadily been growing stronger. Ukraine in 2022 was getting closer to joining the European Union. This would have been the biggest expansion of a whole and free Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, because it would have added to the West a huge agricultural, technological and military power and left Russia more isolated — and looking more out of step to its own people — than ever. At the very same time, the Biden administration was making rapid headway on a deal for the US to forge a security alliance with Saudi Arabia. In return, Saudi Arabia would normalise relations with Israel, and Israel would begin talks with the Palestinians on possible statehood. This would have been the biggest expansion of an integrated Middle East since the Camp David peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in 1979. In short, Ukraine looked poised to join the West, and Israel looked poised to join the East. So what happened? Putin attacked Ukraine to stop the first movement, and Hamas and Iran and others attacked Israel to stop the second. As such, my first question in the aftermath of Sunday morning's strike on Iran is: Does President Trump understand whose side of this global struggle Putin is on? Iran and Russia are close allies for a reason. Iran has been providing Russia with the drones it has used to more effectively kill Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. I do not ask Trump to drop a bomb on Russia, but I do ask him to provide Ukraine with the military, economic and diplomatic support it needs to resist Russia - every bit as much as the US is doing for Israel to defeat Hamas and Iran. China has always had a foot in each camp. Its economy depends on a healthy and growing world of inclusion, but its political leadership has also maintained strong ties to the world of resistance. So Beijing plays in both leagues - buying oil from Iran but always worried that if Iran got a nuclear bomb, it might one day give a copy to fighters from Xinjiang. That said, China's oil purchases from Iran are a crucial part of this story. Those purchases are Tehran's biggest source of external income. As my colleague Keith Bradsher reported from Shanghai, oil sales to China are today 6 per cent of Iran's economy and equal to about half of government spending. - The New York Times Thomas L Friedman The writer is an American political commentator and author
Muscat Daily
8 hours ago
- Muscat Daily
NATO summit in The Hague: A big win for Donald Trump?
Brussels, Belgium – Much of the attention at this week's NATO summit in The Hague will likely be on US President Donald Trump, following the US strikes on Iran's nuclear sites over the weekend. But ramping up defence spending, a major demand by Trump and his administration since day one, will also be in the spotlight. This goal has become potentially acceptable to almost all NATO countries thanks to the persuasive power of Secretary-General Mark Rutte, particularly after Germany, the biggest European economy, threw its weight behind it. Officials at NATO told DW that it's about giving Trump a win but also 'about rebalancing in the alliance', as one senior diplomat put it, stressing that if that's achieved, the summit would be a resounding success. Lessons from the G7 in Canada 'Hopefully, Trump is not going to leave early like he did from the recent G7 meeting in Canada,' Jamie Shea, a former NATO official, told DW. This worst-case scenario is a big concern for some NATO allies and something they want to avoid at any price. Shea said he thinks 'it's important for Trump to be there to learn about all of the good things that NATO is doing at the moment, which help America's security and not just Europe's security'. The goal of spending 5% of GDP on defence, expected to be approved at the summit in The Hague this week, is highly ambitious, and has the potential to transform societies in Europe. In many EU countries, social justice and economic stability were the clear priorities for national governments for decades; in the future they might concentrate on strengthening military power and becoming more independent from the United States. This scenario has led to growing resistance in some parts of Europe. Spain had been against the measure, but ultimately dropped its opposition on Sunday after a deal was reached for it to be exempt. Detering Russia from attacking Asked about how he would explain his plan to citizens in Europe who are against social cuts in favour of new weapons, Rutte recently said leaders need to act now because 'otherwise, four or five years from now, we are really under threat and then you have to get your Russian language course or go to New Zealand'. Rutte's idea is to cut the cake into two pieces and to allocate 3.5% of GDP to core defence needs and 1.5% to security-related investments. These investments include building broader roads and bridges that could carry heavy weaponry but also upgrades on cybersecurity, measures against hybrid attacks, civil protection and aid for Ukraine. Members of the alliance will try to factor in what they are already spending, for instance, on infrastructure, diplomats at NATO acknowledge. But they also stress that the fact that allies were able to agree on the exact definition of the 1.5% target is already a significant success. Spain wants an exemption The biggest challenge is getting everyone on board with the 3.5% target for core military spending. Spain, which has the lowest military spending in the alliance, signalled prior to the summit that it wanted a carve-out. Other nations, like Italy, are demanding more time than the proposed seven years to meet the obligation. Many NATO members are ready to spend more but refuse to commit to yearly plans – a kind of control mechanism – also proposed by Rutte. In the end, it comes down to NATO's credibility, Lithuania's former foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, told DW. The alliance 'is moving in the right direction', he said. But like many representatives of the countries on NATO's Eastern flank in proximity to Russia, he warns against not being serious about fulfilling the new spending pledge. 'What if it is just to have a nice summit and everyone leaves happy, and then nothing really happens?' A disappointing summit for Ukraine? In addition, many Europeans are unhappy about the apparent lack of any ambition when it comes to Ukraine. While Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been invited to the summit, his aspirations to join NATO are unlikely to take centre stage at the summit or be prominently featured in the final declaration 'Clearly, the United States in particular has wanted to play it down,' explained former NATO official Shea. 'So, for Ukraine, it is going to be a rather disappointing NATO summit.' There will be a sentence or two as a reference to Russia as a threat in the final document, NATO sources told DW, but no new tough language, given the ongoing US attempts to get both countries to the negotiating table. It's all about Russia Kristine Berzina, a NATO expert with the German Marshall Fund think tank, said it's important to look at the bigger picture. 'We get so obsessed with the little declarations and paragraphs about such and such,' she told DW. What really matters is that 'NATO is a strong political alliance and the people at the table believe in each other'. That is what she expects to be the summit's strong message. 'Of course, it is about Russia. Talking about the ambitious new steps they're going to take is a signal to Russia,' Berzina said. Still, the summit declaration is expected to be 'short and crisp', as one diplomat put it, and the event is deliberately planned as a brief exchange not to bore Trump, who's known for not being a fan of long speeches by others, and of multilateral organisations in general. A recipe to keep Trump happy The big risk is that, with the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, Trump may not travel to The Hague at all, according to media reports in the US. At NATO HQ in Brussels, diplomats have so far said they do not have any indication that Trump won't be there. So, is the NATO summit just about pleasing Trump, as the programme, including a dinner with the Dutch king, an invitation to play golf in the Netherlands and the expected big spending splash, indicates? In the end, it's about the Europeans, said Shea. 'The 5% of GDP for defence spending is to deter Russia, to keep Europe and NATO citizens safe, sleeping soundly in their beds at night.' But he also admitted that 'provided the decision on the 5% is taken, Trump should go back to Washington a happy man'. DW
