Post #5541

🔤🔤🔤🔤2️⃣ US forces have struck more than 12,300 targets inside Iran since the start of Operation Epic Fury, according to a statement released by US Central Command on Wednesday. Since the start of the war, the Trump administration has sent mixed and at times contradictory signals about the US’s objectives. Trump has repeatedly claimed that Iran’s leadership was seeking a ceasefire, and in a Wednesday social media post described Iran’s “new regime president” as having “just asked” for one – which Tehran called “false and baseless”. Furthermore, it was unclear who Trump had spoken to – Iran has a new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who succeeded his father, the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, after he was killed on the opening day of US-led airstrikes against Iran. Iranian president Masoud ​Pezeshkian took office in July 2024. Before the president’s speech on Wednesday, ​Pezeshkian appealed directly to the American people with a message of his own. “Exactly which of the American people’s interests are truly being served by this war?” ​Pezeshkian asked in a letter posted in English on his X account. “Was there any objective threat from Iran to justify such behavior?” ​Pezeshkian suggested the US had entered the war at Israel’s urging, and insisted that Iran’s attacks on its neighbors was a “measured response grounded in legitimate self-defense”. “Is ‘America First’ truly among the priorities of the US government today?” he asked. Complicating the picture further, Trump has lashed out at the US’s allies, citing their refusal to join the war effort and inaction to reopen the strait of Hormuz in a series of escalating social media posts and interviews. In his remarks on Wednesday evening he made no mention of Nato, but earlier in the day he told Reuters he was “absolutely without question” considering withdrawing from Nato. He also told the Telegraph that he was “never swayed” by the 77-year-old military alliance and “always knew they were a paper tiger”. Trump has suggested that a ceasefire would depend on Tehran reopening the strait of Hormuz, while indicating that US forces could be “out of Iran pretty quickly”. He left open the possibility of “spot hits” inside Iran if necessary. In his speech, the president also took pains to distinguish the current conflict from America’s often lengthy past wars, calling the 32-day military campaign “so powerful, so brilliant”. With the war in its fifth week, key US objectives remain unclear. Trump has downplayed concerns about Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, dismissing it as too deeply buried underground to matter. He had previously argued that preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon was a major justification for the war. Analysts have disputed the US president’s claims that Iran was close to building a nuclear weapon. Meanwhile, thousands of US troops remain positioned in the region, providing the option of a broader ground campaign after weeks of airstrikes targeting Iran. #iran#trump#hormuz#strait#nato 📱American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸