Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Iranian on tour
President blames ‘fake news,’ says he doesn’t want war
WASHINGTON — After two weeks of mixed signals on Iran, from high-profile U.S. military moves to administration assertions that it’s not angling for war, President Donald Trump said on Friday that even the Iranians may be confused about what comes next.
“With all of the Fake and Made Up News out there,” Trump wrote on Twitter, “Iran can have no idea what is actually going on.”
Trump said Thursday that he hoped the U.S. was not on a path to war with Iran. A day earlier he expressed a desire for dialogue, tweeting, “I’m sure that Iran will want to talk soon.” But Tehran has shown no visible sign of preparing to talk.
Trump’s recent tone contrasted with a series of moves by the U.S. and Iran that have sharply escalated tensions in the Middle East in recent days. For the past year, national security adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have pushed the administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran.
On Friday, an official with Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard warned that Iranian missiles can “easily reach warships” in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere in the Middle East. The semi-official Fars news agency quoted Mohammad Saleh Jokar as saying that Iran’s missiles have a range of about 1,250 miles and can attack any target in the region.
The escalating rhetoric has rattled lawmakers who are demanding more information on the White House’s claims of rising Iranian aggression. Top leaders in Congress received a classified briefing on Iran on Thursday, but many other lawmakers from both parties have criticized the White House for not keeping them informed.
Trump pulled the U.S. out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal last year and reinstated sanctions on Tehran that are crippling its economy.
Tensions rose May 5, when Bolton announced that the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group would be rushed from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf ahead of schedule in response to “a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings,” without going into details.
The USS Abraham Lincoln and its carrier strike group have yet to reach the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a third of all oil traded at sea passes. A Revolutionary Guard deputy warned that any armed conflict would affect the global energy market. Iran long has threatened to be able to shut off the strait.
However, the USS McFaul and the USS Gonzalez, two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, transited the strait on Thursday without incident.
On Sunday, four oil tankers, including two belonging to Saudi Arabia, were targeted in an apparent act of sabotage off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, according to officials in the region, and a Saudi pipeline was attacked by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels from Yemen. The U.S. also ordered non-essential staff out of Iraq and has dispatched additional military assets to the region.
The Senate will receive a classified briefing on Iran on Tuesday, according to Jim Risch of Idaho, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. The House has requested a classified briefing as well.
Trump has dismissed suggestions that any of his advisers, particularly Bolton, are pushing him into a conflict.
“I have different sides. I mean, I have John Bolton, and I have other people that are a little more dovish than him. And ultimately I make the decision,” Trump said recently when asked if he was satisfied with Bolton’s advice.
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif traveled Friday to China to meet with his Chinese counterpart on his Asian tour aimed at keeping world markets open to Tehran.
China was one of the signatories on Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal. Iran wishes to cooperate with China “bilaterally and multilaterally, in order to preserve the interests of our two peoples … for peace and security,” Zarif said.
Wang Yi told Zarif during the meeting that China hopes the Iran nuclear deal can be “fully implemented.”
“China firmly opposes unilateral sanctions and the so-called ‘long-arm’ jurisdiction imposed by the United States on Iran,” Wang said, according to China’s Xinhua state news agency.
The Chinese foreign minister pledged to maintain the nuclear deal and work with Iran to eliminate “complicated disturbing factors,” Xinhua said.
Information for this article was contributed by Nasser Karimi, Zeke Miller, Jon Gambrell and staff members of The Associated Press.