President Donald Trump argued that any revived nuclear accord with Iran should permit the United States to destroy the country’s nuclear infrastructure and send inspectors to Iranian facilities at any time.
The president outlined his vision for a new agreement during a White House presser on Wednesday, calling for a “very strong document” that would effectively give Washington carte blanche over Tehran’s nuclear energy program.
“I want it very strong – where we can go in with inspectors, we can take whatever we want, we can blow up whatever we want, but [with] nobody getting killed,” he told reporters. “We can blow up a lab, but nobody is gonna be in the lab, as opposed to everybody being in the lab and blowing it up.”
He did not elaborate on those remarks, however, leaving it unclear whether Washington had actually pushed for such major concessions at the negotiating table. The Islamic Republic would be unlikely to accept a deal under those terms.
Ali Shamkhani, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, later denounced Trump’s comments in a social media post, suggesting his proposal would cross Tehran’s “red lines.”
“Efforts to reach Iran’s nuclear plants and ‘blow up their facilities’ have been a dream of previous US presidents,” he wrote. “Iran is an independent state with a strong defense structure, a resilient people, and clear red lines. Negotiations are a means to progress and preserve national interests and honor, not submission and surrender.”
During the same news conference on Wednesday, Trump said he had urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to refrain from military action against Iran amid the ongoing nuclear talks, arguing the move would be “inappropriate” as the two sides were “very close to a solution.” He went on to claim that a new agreement could be reached with Tehran in “a couple weeks,” though his previous assessments have proven overly optimistic.
The threat of an Israeli attack has loomed large over the US-Iran negotiations, as Tel Aviv continues to accuse Tehran of pursuing nuclear weapons despite repeated American intelligence assessments to the contrary.
During a visit to Iran last month, Saudi Arabia’s defense chief reportedly warned top Iranian officials that failure to “quickly” reach a deal with the US could prompt airstrikes by Israel. The Saudi minister added that Trump had “little patience for drawn-out negotiations,” and suggested that a new conflict with Tel Aviv would destabilize the region, according to sources cited by Reuters.
Will Porter is assistant news editor and book editor at the Libertarian Institute, and a regular contributor at Antiwar.com. Find more of his work at Consortium News and ZeroHedge.
