Iran Vows to 'Respond Like Never Before' as Trump Ramps Up War Threats

As President Donald Trump escalated his renewed military aggression against Iran, Tehran warned Wednesday that any US attack would trigger unprecedented retaliation.

"Last time the US blundered into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, it squandered over $7 trillion and lost more than 7,000 American lives," Iran's Permanent Mission to the United Nations said on X Wednesday. "Iran stands ready for dialogue based on mutual respect and interests—BUT IF PUSHED, IT WILL DEFEND ITSELF AND RESPOND LIKE NEVER BEFORE!"

This, after Trump said on his Truth Social network that "a massive armada is headed to Iran" with "great power, enthusiasm, and purpose."

Trump said nearly the same thing before invading Venezuela and kidnapping Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife earlier this month.

"It is a larger fleet, headed by the great Aircraft Carrier Abraham Lincoln, than that sent to Venezuela," Trump continued. "Like with Venezuela, it is, ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary. Hopefully Iran will quickly 'Come to the Table' and negotiate a fair and equitable deal—NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS—one that is good for all parties."

"Time is running out, it is truly of the essence!" the president added. "As I told Iran once before, MAKE A DEAL! They didn’t, and there was 'Operation Midnight Hammer,' a major destruction of Iran. The next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again."

Allies of both the United States and Iran added to mounting tensions.

Alluding to the recent street protests that were brutally crushed by the Iranian government at the cost of at least hundreds and possibly thousands of lives, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Wednesday: "A regime that can only hold onto power through sheer violence and terror against its own population; its days are numbered. It could be a matter of weeks, but this regime has no legitimacy to govern the country.”

Meanwhile, the Iran-aligned militia Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq said it is ready for "total war" if the US attacks. There are still thousands of US troops in Iraq nearly 23 years after the second American invasion of the country; Iranian forces have attacked US military assets in the Middle East following past American strikes on Iran or its officials.

After a joint phone call, the foreign ministers of Iran and its regional rival, Saudi Arabia, said any attack on Iran would have "dangerous consquences."

Their call followed a Tuesday phone conversation between Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

"The threats and psychological operations of the Americans are aimed at disrupting the security of the region and will achieve nothing other than instability," Pezeshkian told the crown prince, according to Iranian media.

Bin Salman told Pezeshkian that Saudi Arabia "will not allow the use of its airspace or territory in any military actions against the Islamic Republic of Iran or any attacks from any side, regardless of its destination," a transcript of the call said.

Last June, Israel launched a large-scale attack on Iran's nuclear and military infrastructure, killing hundreds of people. Later that month, Trump ordered US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. Iran retaliated with a massive but limited missile attack on Israel, killing around two dozen people and injuring hundreds more.

Responding to Trump's renewed threats, Lebanese-British journalist Hala Jaber said on X Wednesday that "this is not diplomacy. It is coercion by force, publicly framed as negotiation. The language leaves little room for de-escalation."

Sniping at Trump's claim that Iran's nuclear sites were destroyed by last year's strikes, Palestinian-American writer and political analyst Yousef Munayyer said, "I thought Trump told us his strikes last summer obliterated Iran's nuclear program? Also, threatening to bomb a country unless it abandons pursuit of a nuclear deterrent is a pretty counter-productive line of argument."

US investigative journalist and Drop Site News co-founder Jeremy Scahill took aim at Trump's claim that US intervention in Iran is about protecting the lives of Iranian protesters—a dubious assertion given his administration's deadly repression in Minneapolis—saying Wednesday that "at the end of the day... this is about US imperial aims. It’s about oil. It’s about gas. It’s about geopolitical war.'

"This is what it's been about in terms of US policy toward Iran for decades," Scahill said. "It was what it was about in 1953 when the CIA and British intelligence orchestrated the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh. It was what it was about when the US was supporting the brutal regime of the Shah of Iran, all the way up until the dying days of his regime. This has been what the US sanctions policy against Iran has been about."

"And in June, when the US and Israel launched 12 days of heavy bombing of Iran in the name of degrading and destroying potential Iranian nuclear capacity, those bombings killed more than 1,000 people," he continued. "And remember that Donald Trump used the veneer... of negotiations with Iran... to provide cover to do a surprise 12-day bombing of Iran."

"Nothing the US is doing right now—and I mean absolutely nothing—is about supporting any Iranians," Scahill added, "except those that the US and Israel believe will be pliable."