Trump tweet elicits threat from Iran Guard command
TEHRAN, Iran — The leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard warned Thursday that he has ordered his forces to potentially target the U.S. Navy after President Donald Trump’s tweet the previous day threatening to sink Iranian vessels.
Iran also summoned the Swiss ambassador, who looks out for America’s interests in the country, to complain about Trump’s threat coming amid months of escalating tensions between the two countries. While the coronavirus pandemic temporarily paused those tensions, Iran has since begun pushing back against the Trump administration’s maximum pressure policy both militarily and diplomatically.
The Guard on Wednesday launched Iran’s first military satellite, unveiling a previously secret space program.
Speaking to state television Thursday, Guard Gen. Hossein Salami warned that his forces “will answer any action by a decisive, effective and quick counteraction.”
The latest dispute comes after the U.S. Navy said last week that 11 Guard naval gunboats had carried out “dangerous and harassing approaches” to American Navy and Coast Guard vessels in the Persian Gulf. The Americans said they used a variety of nonlethal means to warn off the Iranian boats, which eventually left. Iran, meanwhile, accused the U.S. of sparking the incident, without offering evidence for the claim.
Trump on Wednesday, facing a collapsing global energy market and the coronavirus pandemic amid his reelection campaign, tweeted out a warning to Iran, saying that he ordered the Navy to “shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea.”
Meanwhile, the Guard surprised analysts by sending a satellite into space Wednesday from a previously unused launchpad and with a new system. While Iran stresses its program is peaceful, Western nations fear such a program will help Iran build intercontinental ballistic missiles.
State television said Thursday that Iran received signals from the satellite, without elaborating. While American officials have not acknowledged that the satellite reached orbit, open-source data from the U.S. military suggested the “Noor,” or “Light” satellite now orbited the Earth.
France said Thursday that it strongly condemns the launch and called on Tehran to “immediately halt any activity related to the development of ballistic missiles designed to be able to carry nuclear weapons, including space launch vehicles.”
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova rejected assertions the launch violated the U.N. Security Council’s resolution on Iran, noting that Iran has the right to develop its space program for peaceful purposes.
Later Thursday, Iranian Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Guard’s aerospace division, told state TV that ground stations in Iran are communicating with the satellite, which takes about a week to reach its full capacity.
He said, without elaborating, that the Guard plans to send more such satellites into even higher orbits.