On Saturday, following days of bath-and-forth incursions by Israel and Iran, Trump green lit the first active US involvement. 125 US aircraft reportedly traveled over 7,000 miles to drop bombs on three of Iran’s nuclear sites.
The POTUS also issued a stern warning to Iran should they be considering retaliating in any way. Trump said any attempt at retribution “will be met with force far greater” than than the weekend’s strikes.
Iran now have a decision to make regarding such how they’ll respond to US involvement. From a neutral standpoint the wisest course of action seems to be that they do nothing – that is to say do their best to avoid becoming a target for future US attacks.
Another play – however ill-advised – would be immediate retaliation. Unfortunately, the Iranian government may feel forced to pursue this option to save face, particularly as they had already promised retribution if attacked by the US in the days leading up to the Trump-sanctioned airstrikes.
“The US military carried out massive precision strikes on the three key nuclear assemblies in the Iranian regime: Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan,” Trump told American citizens in a national address.
“Our objective was the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s number one state sponsor of terror.”
As per NBC News, Iran warned Trump that it would move to activate so-called ‘sleeper cell’ terror agents already on American soil in the event that the US launched an attack. Trump, it’s said, was given this information through an intermediary at the G7 summit in Canada last week.
The Independent describes said sleeper cells agents as spies/terrorists that reside in the US but remain dormant (sleeping) until given direct orders to attack. They often present themselves as regular members of society and have normal jobs and family setups.
When and where they might be ordered to attack obviously remains a mystery, but New York authorities are said to be in a state of “heightened alert”.
Eric Adams, New York City mayor, said: “There are no notable threats directly to the city, but you always want to be conscious of lone wolves.”
The NYPD will focus its attention on locations tied to Jewish and Persian communities – as per NBC – as well as popular tourist hotspots like Times Square.
Iran vows backlash
In the wake of the weekend’s bombing mission, Iran let it be known in no uncertain terms that it is eyeing some sort of retribution against the US.
The country’s Foreign Minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, posted on social that that the US “committed a grave violation of the UN Charter, international law and the NPT by attacking Iran’s peaceful nuclear installations.”
He continued: “The events this morning are outrageous and will have everlasting consequences. Each and every member of the UN must be alarmed over this extremely dangerous, lawless and criminal behavior.”
What do you make of the US attacks on the Iranian nuclear sites? Let us know in the comments.
