Trump: We Will Strike Iran Again Today, It Must Sign the Deal

U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday evening that “Iran needs to sign the deal. Just as we attacked it yesterday, we are going to strike them very hard again today.” According to him, “the Pakistanis are working with the Iranians to do the right thing. We are very close to an agreement, but every time they keep giving us problems in dribs and drabs.”

He added: “The negotiations are slow, they are making it difficult for us, I am giving them days and they keep going.” The president also addressed remarks by his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who said earlier that “the attacks carried out by Israel in Syria and Lebanon endanger Turkey.” Trump noted that Erdogan is “a friend, and we work well together. I like him. I did not hear what he said, if I had heard about it I would have called him.”

Shortly afterward, an American official told Al Jazeera that “our strikes against Iran in response to the downing of the American helicopter have ended. Our forces struck about 20 targets inside Iran in self-defense. Iran’s attacks caused no casualties among our forces and did not cause significant damage to facilities. Most of the missiles and UAVs launched by Iran were intercepted or failed to hit their targets.”

Earlier, after once again threatening Iran and saying that he was “close to resuming strikes in Iran,” Trump told Channel 13 News that “additional American strikes in Iran are a real option.” Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf responded to the threats, saying: “Any aggression will be met with a direct and decisive response.” An Iranian military spokesman added: “We have already proven that we respond appropriately to threats.”

Shortly before that, Trump wrote on his social network TRUTH that “the Iranian military is in total chaos, most of it, like the navy and air force, no longer even exists. They have been completely defeated. Iran is all talk and no action. The bully of the Middle East is dead.” He added: “They have taken too long in negotiating a deal that was great for them, and now they will pay the price.”

A Fox News correspondent reported that he spoke with Trump by phone, and that the president said he was close to ordering additional strikes in Iran. “Throughout the ceasefire the Iranians tried to rebuild their missile array, and now we hit it in the latest strike,” Trump said. “It is taking them far too long to reach a deal, they had a chance to make a deal and survive.”

At the same time, Vice President J.D. Vance told USA TODAY that he was “confident that in a year we will not be talking about American involvement in Iran. President Trump will not let this become a quagmire for Americans.”

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei was asked by media in the Islamic Republic about progress in talks with the United States, against the backdrop of overnight exchanges of fire, and said that “we must examine this while taking last night’s events into account.” “Diplomacy and the military campaign are not two separate fields,” Baghaei said. “Together they are tools for preserving Iran’s interests and national security.” He added: “There is also full coordination in the diplomatic sphere among all branches of government, and wherever necessary the tool of diplomacy will be used, and wherever circumstances require it, military force, in order to defend the country. Wherever necessary, our armed forces will respond to the enemy with force.”