The U.S. is moving additional military assets into the Middle East amid speculation Trump could green light an attack on Iran at any moment. More than a dozen F-15 fighter jets have been deployed along with the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier. The sense that an overt war is imminent has abated and the protests, riots, and bloodshed in the streets of Iran that took place earlier this month have, for now, ended, yet the incendiary situation remains liable to develop into wider conflict.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that if Iran sought to assassinate him, “the whole country’s going to get blown up.” “I have very firm instructions,” he continued. “Anything happens, they’re going to wipe them off the face of this earth.” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has said that any attempt to assassinate Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “is tantamount to a full-scale war with the Iranian nation.”
Drop Site News’s Jeremy Scahill spoke to Dr. Foad Izadi, professor of American studies and international relations at University of Tehran, on Wednesday. They discussed the origins of the protests, the narrative war, how Iran might respond to another military attack by the U.S. and more.
“The U.S. wants to repeat the Libya experience, disintegrate Iran, take out the oil-rich southern part, and then the rest of the country would fall apart. This is the ultimate plan they have,” said Izadi. “I don’t think they have given up. I think Trump has basically given the Iran portfolio to Netanyahu. He decides what to do. And then basically Trump implements whatever Netanyahu has decided to do. And Trump is going to be in office for another three years. So I don’t think they are done with Iran.”