On February 28, Trump, with support from the State of Israel, carried out significant strikes against Iran after a massive military buildup in the Middle East that includes two aircraft carrier groups.
Cities impacted in Iran include Tehran, “Qom, Kermanshah, Isfahan and Karaj.” The United States military is focusing on inflicting damage upon Iran’s military apparatus, according to an American official.
On Truth Social, Trump posted an eight minute video in which he attempted to justify these attacks, going back to the beginning of Iran’s belligerent behavior toward the United States, which goes back to 1979, when an Islamic revolutionary movement overthrew the Shah. Hundreds of Americans were taken hostage, and, a few years later, hundreds of American service members were killed in Lebanon, an attack for which Iran is culpable. Trump emphasized the risk of Iran developing a nuclear weapon, despite his previous statements that their nuclear program was obliterated, a claim he repeated in this very speech.
Trump has contradicted America’s own intelligence agencies, which found that Iran was not developing a nuclear weapon.
Trump outlined some of the military objectives of the strikes, which include missile facilities and the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy. He called for the people of Iran to overthrow their dictatorship after the strikes, and offered immunity to soldiers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and other soldiers and security personnel of the regime, if they lay down their arms. He promised death if they refused to comply. In recent months, Iran’s theocratic regime has killed thousands of protesters.
Trump’s speech has been criticized for its vagueness and lack of strategic clarity. For instance, Trump did not say which entities that Iranian forces can surrender to. He did not define what an American victory would look like, or how it would be achieved, outside of bombing regime infrastructure and allowing for the Iranian people to take over. Concerns over a lack of coherent strategy regarding Iran date back to when Persian-language Voice of America employees were suddenly fired.
Trump warned of American casualties. Israeli hospitals and American bases across the Middle East have also braced themselves for retaliation from Iran and its allies.
In the immediate aftermath of the strikes, the IRGC attacked American bases in Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the United States Fifth Fleet base in Bahrain. Iran has also attacked Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh, Oman, as well as Israel.
Senior IRGC members and political officials of the Iranian regime were slain. It was later confirmed that Supreme Leader and Grand Ayatollah, Ali Khamenei, the dictator of Iran, was killed by the strikes, alongside his daughter, grandson, daughter-in-law, and son-in-law.
American soldiers, Israeli, Gulf State, and Iranian civilians have lost their lives as a result of the conflict.
Trump was not authorized by Congress to take this military action against Iran, and will thus be labeled as illegal. Senator Jack Reed of the Senate Armed Services Committee stated that the Trump administration did not provide him with “real briefings or intelligence.”
