President Trump was briefed on new options for military strikes in Iran, a senior U.S. official confirmed Sunday.
Mr. Trump appeared to lay out his red line for action on Friday when he warned that if the Iranian government began “killing people like they have in the past, we would get involved.”
“We’ll be hitting them very hard where it hurts,” he said at the White House. “And that doesn’t mean boots on the ground, but it means hitting them very, very hard where it hurts.”
On social media, Mr. Trump offered his support for the protesters, saying that “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!”
Mr. Trump’s warnings come as nationwide unrest challenging Iran’s theocracy crossed the two-week mark. At least 538 people have died in violence surrounding the demonstrations, U.S.-based activists said, with fears the death toll is far higher. More than 10,600 people have been arrested, the Human Rights Activists News Agency said.
The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous U.S. officials, first reported Saturday night that Mr. Trump had been given military options but hadn’t made a final decision. The WSJ reports that Trump will receive further options on Tuesday.
The U.S. has not moved any forces in preparation for potential military strikes.
America has many capabilities and options, and cyber attacks could be among them, according to a U.S. official who also confirmed that the Trump administration approves of Elon Musk’s decision to make Starlink terminals available in Iran. That satellite-based internet service could help protestors bypass government restrictions amid the ongoing communications blackout. Starlink did not respond to CBS inquiries.
The U.S. already has heavy sanctions on Iran’s regime, and in recent weeks has added to them. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Sunday that Mr. Trump has “moral support” for actions in Iran. He declined to answer a question about whether the U.S. would interdict vessels carrying Iranian oil for trading on the black market.
“I think the people in Iran are rising up because they feel there’s a strong America that has their back,” Wright said.
Iran’s theocratic rulers continue to claim that the protesters are agitators influenced by the U.S. and Israel. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke Saturday about the protests and other regional issues, according to US officials.
Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, Iran’s parliament speaker and a hardliner who has run for the presidency in the past, warned Sunday that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if the U.S. strikes the Islamic Republic.
“In the event of an attack on Iran, both the occupied territory and all American military centers, bases and ships in the region will be our legitimate targets,” Qalibaf said, according to the Associated Press. “We do not consider ourselves limited to reacting after the action and will act based on any objective signs of a threat.”
On Friday, Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, said on X: “Our enemies don’t know Iran. In the past, the US failed due to their flawed planning. Today too, their flawed scheming will cause them to fail.”
There are currently 2,000 U.S. troops next door in Iraq, stationed on bases that have previously been targeted by Iranian-backed militias. There are also U.S. forces throughout the Mideast region, including significant hubs in Qatar, home of U.S. Central Command, and Bahrain, where the U.S. Navy’s Mideast-based 5th Fleet is stationed.
Back in June, Iran launched a missile strike on the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar in retaliation for the U.S. airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities.
Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who is on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, said on “Face the Nation” that U.S. military action in Iran now to help the protesters would be a “massive mistake.”
“It would have the effect of giving the Iranian regime the ability to say it’s the U.S. that’s screwing our country up,” Kaine said. “Right now, Iranians are blaming, appropriately, the regime for screwing up the country.”
Kaine called for maintaining the sanctions pressure, noting that it had been successful against the Assad regime in Syria. Last December, armed rebels previously aligned with terror groups finally ousted Assad from power after a 14 year civil war.
“U.S. military action would bring back the painful history of the U.S. toppling the Iranian prime minister back in the 1950s and would give the regime the ability to blame their own failures on the United States,” he added.
When asked on Sunday if shooting protesters would be the “red line” for Mr. Trump that would trigger U.S. action, a senior U.S. official declined to explicitly confirm it, saying “only Trump can determine what the red line is.”
The White House and U.S. State Department have declined to answer questions about specific military options being considered.
The demonstrations began Dec. 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions imposed in part to curb its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran’s theocracy.
