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Allies Urged Trump Not to Fire on Iran 01/16 06:28
Several Middle Eastern allies of the United States have urged the Trump
administration to hold off on strikes against Iran for the government's deadly
crackdown on protesters, according to an Arab diplomat familiar with the matter.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Several Middle Eastern allies of the United States have
urged the Trump administration to hold off on strikes against Iran for the
government's deadly crackdown on protesters, according to an Arab diplomat
familiar with the matter.
Top officials from Egypt, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have raised concerns
in the last 48 hours that a U.S. military intervention would shake the global
economy and destabilize an already volatile region, said the diplomat who spoke
on condition of anonymity to describe the sensitive conversations.
Oil prices fell on Thursday as the markets appeared to take note of
President Donald Trump's shifting tone as a sign that he's leaning away from
attacking Iran after days of launching blistering threats at Tehran for its
brutal crackdown.
Nevertheless, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday
maintained that "all options remain on the table" for Trump as he deals with
Iran.
"The truth is only President Trump knows what he's going to do and a very,
very small team of advisers are read into his thinking on that," Leavitt said.
She added, "He continues to closely monitor the situation on the ground in
Iran."
The nationwide protests challenging Iran's theocracy appeared increasingly
smothered Thursday, a week after authorities shut the country off from the
world and escalated a bloody crackdown that activists say has killed at least
2,637 people.
The delicate diplomacy from Arab officials comes during a period of
rhetorical whiplash from Trump.
Trump, in a matter of a day, went from offering assurances to Iranian
citizens that "help is on its way" and urging them to take over their country's
institutions to abruptly declaring on Wednesday that he had received
information from "very important sources on the other side" that Iran had
stopped killing protesters and was not going forward with executions.
The Arab officials also urged senior Iranian officials to quickly end the
violent repression of protesters. They warned that any Iranian response to a
U.S. action against the U.S. or other targets in the region would have
significant repercussions for Iran, the diplomat said.
Asked about reports of allies asking Trump to hold off on the strikes at a
White House briefing, Leavitt did not directly address the matter.
Ambassador Mike Waltz, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations, said military
action is an option that remains in play.
"President Trump is a man of action, not endless talk like we see at the
United Nations," Waltz said in remarks at a meeting of the U.N. Security
Council to discuss the Iran protests. "He has made it clear all options are on
the table to stop the slaughter."
But Trump himself appeared to send signals he could be backing away from a
potential U.S. strike on Iran after days of threatening one was in the offing.
He took to social media to highlight a Fox News headline about the
suspension of a death sentence for an Iranian shopkeeper, 26-year-old Erfan
Soltani.
Iranian state media denied Soltani had been condemned to death. Iranian
judicial authorities said Soltani was being held in a detention facility
outside of the capital.
Alongside other protesters, he has been accused of "propaganda activities
against the regime," state media said.
"This is good news. Hopefully, it will continue!" Trump said in his post
about the reported pause in the execution of the shopkeeper. The White House
later asserted that Iran had halted 800 scheduled executions.
Trump has been known to purposefully display ambiguity about his intentions
to maintain an element of surprise.
Last June, as Trump was weighing whether to follow Israel as it carried out
strikes on Iran, Leavitt read a message to reporters that she said came
"directly from the president" in which Trump said he would decide whether to
strike Iran "within the next two weeks."
Less than two days later, Trump ordered B-2 bombers to carry out strikes on
critical Iranian nuclear sites.
Jeremy Shapiro, research director of the European Council on Foreign
Relations, said Trump may have decided to hold off on strikes because of
concerns about the current U.S. force posture in the Middle East.
There are currently no U.S. aircraft carriers, considered a critical asset
in a significant military operation, in the region after the USS Gerald R. Ford
and its strike group were deployed to the U.S. Southern Command region as the
part of a massive counter-narcotics operation focused on Venezuela.
"It might be that they're delaying things and using the time for getting
that posture correct," Shapiro said.
The Trump administration on Thursday also announced new sanction s against
Iran.
Included in Thursday's sanctions is the secretary of the Supreme Council for
National Security, whom the Treasury Department accuses of being one of the
first officials to call for violence against Iranian protesters.
The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control also designated
18 people and companies that the U.S. says have participated in laundering
money from sales of Iranian oil to foreign markets as part of a shadow banking
network of sanctioned Iranian financial institutions Bank Melli and Shahr Bank.
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