President Donald Trump said a US “armada” was moving towards the Gulf and that Washington was closely monitoring Iran, even after he played down the possibility of immediate military action and said Tehran was interested in talks.
Trump has repeatedly left open the possibility of new military action against Iran after Washington backed and joined Israel’s 12-day war in June aimed at degrading Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
The prospect of immediate US action has appeared dim in recent days, with both sides insisting on giving diplomacy a chance. On his return from the World Economic Forum in Davos, the president told reporters aboard Air Force One that the United States was sending a “massive fleet” towards Iran “just in case.”
“We are monitoring Iran. I would rather not see anything happen, but we are monitoring them very closely,” he said.
Speaking at the WEF on Thursday, Trump said the United States attacked Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities last year to prevent Tehran from building nuclear weapons. Iran denies that its nuclear program is aimed at producing an atomic bomb.
“We cannot allow that to happen. Iran wants to talk, and we will talk,” he said.
The commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) also warned Washington on Thursday that the force had a “finger on the trigger.”
Two weeks of protests that began in late December have shaken Iran’s clerical leadership under Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, but the movement has been subdued in the face of a crackdown that activists say has killed thousands and brought the internet to a standstill.
Last week, Trump backed off a threat to attack Iran over its deadly crackdown on protests after the White House said Tehran had halted planned executions of protesters.
In a standoff marked by shifting rhetoric, Trump warned Iranian leaders on Tuesday that the United States would “wipe them off the face of the earth” if there was any attempt on his life in response to the attack on Khamenei.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, in a speech on Thursday, accused the United States and Israel of fomenting the protests as “cowardly revenge for defeat in the 12-day war,”
