Donald Trump in tweet vows ‘end of Iran’ if it wants to fight
- Tensions between Washington and Tehran have been on the rise as the United States has deployed a carrier group and B-52 bombers to the Gulf
- The White House has sent mixed signals in recent days, amid multiple US media reports of infighting in Trump’s cabinet over how hard to push Iran
US President Donald Trump has issued one of his most direct threats yet to Iran, suggesting that if the Islamic republic attacks American interests, it will be destroyed.
Trump emerged from his golf club in Sterling, Virginia, on Sunday to tweet belligerently at around 4.30pm, thereby risking a quickening of tension that is already rising.
“If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!” Trump said in the tweet.
In a taped interview that aired Sunday on Fox News, Trump said: “I just don’t want them to have nuclear weapons and they can’t be threatening us”.
The tweet will do little to assuage jitters in the Middle East and in Washington about aggressive language coming out of the White House.
Concern is already running high that Trump’s hawkish national security adviser, John Bolton, who played a key role in instigating the invasion of Iraq under George Bush, might be nudging the administration towards military action.
In 2015, Bolton wrote a New York Times op-ed entitled “To stop Iran’s bomb, bomb Iran”. Trump withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear deal last year.