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tehran
Trump Threatens Iran With 'Bombing the Likes of Which They Have Never Seen'
Despite U.S. intelligence once again finding Iran is not currently developing nukes, the president is trying to force Tehran into a nuclear deal after unilaterally abrogating an existing one in 2018.
Mar 31, 2025
Iran's military has reportedly readied ballistic missiles for possible launch against U.S. bases in the Middle East after President Donald Trump renewed his threat to wage war on the country if it does not reach an agreement with his administration regarding nuclear weapons—which American intelligence agencies have repeatedly found Tehran is not building.
Trump discussed Iran during a Sunday phone call with NBC News' Kristen Welker, telling her that "if they don't make a deal, there will be bombing, and it will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before," adding that there is also "a chance that if they don't make a deal, that I will do secondary tariffs on them like I did four years ago."
Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran's theocratic government, warned Monday that "if any hostile act is committed from outside, though the likelihood is not high, it will undoubtedly be met with a strong counterstrike."
Esmaeil Baghaei, a spokesperson for Iran's Foreign Ministry, said on social media Monday that "an open threat of bombing by a head of state against Iran is a shocking affront to the very essence of international peace and security."
"It violates the United Nations Charter and betrays the safeguards under the [International Atomic Energy Agency]," Baghaei added. "Violence breeds violence, peace begets peace. The U.S. can choose the course."
Iranian Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC) Aerospace Division, noted Monday that "the Americans have 10 bases in the region, particularly around Iran, and 50,000 troops based in there."
"This means they are sitting in a glass house; and when one sits in a glass house, one does not throw stones at others," he added.
The Tehran Timesreported Monday that Iran's military has "readied missiles with the capability to strike U.S.-related positions" and that "a significant number of these launch-ready missiles are located in underground facilities scattered across the country, designed to withstand airstrikes."
The U.S., meanwhile, is amassing firepower including B-2 Stealth Bombers at its base on the forcibly depopulated island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean for possible use in strikes against Iran.
Trump today: If Iran does not agree to a deal “There will be bombing and it will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before” Can he go 1 day without threatening a new war? How many would he like? - Greenland - Panama - Gaza - Mexico - Yemen - Somalia - Gaza - Venezuela Is 8 enough?
— Secular Talk (@kylekulinskishow.bsky.social) March 30, 2025 at 8:36 PM
Trump's threat to attack Iran—which hasn't started a war since the mid-19th century—comes despite U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testifying before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last week that "Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamanei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003."
U.S. intelligence agencies have repeatedly come to the same conclusion since the George W. Bush administration.
However, Gabbard added that "Iran's enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons."
That's at least partly due to the unilateral U.S. withdrawal from the landmark Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—also known as the Iran nuclear deal—in 2018 during Trump's first administration.
Since Trump abandoned the JCPOA—which was signed in 2015 during the Obama administration by China, France, Germany, Iran, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States—Tehran has been operating advanced centrifuges and rapidly stockpiling enriched uranium.
While there were hopes of a renewed deal during the tenure of former U.S. President Joe Biden, no agreement was reached, and Iranians continue to suffer under economic sanctions that critics have said are killing people and crippling the country's economy.
Earlier this month, Trump sent a letter to Khamenei in which he claims to have said, "I hope you're going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it's going to be a terrible thing."
On Sunday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian left open the possibility of indirect talks but said that the U.S. could not be trusted to keep its word.
"We don't avoid talks; it's the breach of promises that has caused issues for us so far," Pezeshkian said during a televised Cabinet meeting. "They must prove that they can build trust."
This isn't the first time that Trump has threatened Iran. In 2020, during his first term, the president vowed to strike 52 sites across Iran "very fast and very hard" if it retaliated for the U.S. assassination of IRGC commander Gen. Qasem Soleimani in Iraq. Later that year, Trump had another message for Iran: "If you fuck around with us, if you do something bad to us, we are going to do things to you that have never been done before."
On the campaign trail last September, Trump told Iranians he would "blow your largest cities and the country itself to smithereens" if he was reelected and Iran didn't cease what he perceives as threats against the United States.
While the U.S. has never directly attacked Iran, it did help overthrow the country's reformist government in 1953 and supported a repressive monarchy for decades leading up to the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The U.S. backed Iraq during that country's eight-year war against Iran, during which then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's forces used chemical weapons against Iranian troops and his own restive Kurdish population. In 1988, a U.S. warship in Iranian waters accidentally shot down Iran Air Flight 655, killing all 290 passengers and crew aboard. Then-President Ronald Reagan blamed the incident on the "barbaric Iranians."
The U.S. has also
supported the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), a State Department-designated terrorist group that had previously assassinated six American officials, and successive U.S. administrations have used international financial institutions to punish Iran, like in 2007 when Bush pressured the World Bank into suspending emergency relief aid after the 2003 Bam earthquake, which killed more than 26,000 Iranians.
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Israel Attacks Iran; Explosions Also Reported in Syria and Iraq
"The targets there are likely both Iranian assets as well as militias supported by Tehran," said one Middle East expert.
Oct 25, 2024
Israel—which is already waging war on Gaza and Lebanon—said its military struck targets in and near Iran's capital Tehran early Saturday, while explosions believed to be Israeli attacks were also reported in Syria and Iraq.
Numerous explosions were reported in and near the Iranian capital, including at the Imam Khomeini International Airport, as well as in eastern parts of the city and the Sadeghiyeh neighborhood of western Tehran. Israeli targets reportedly included the headquarters of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
"In response to months of continuous attacks from the regime in Iran against the state of Israel—right now the Israel Defense Forces is conducting precise strikes on military targets in Iran," IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a video posted on social media.
"The regime in Iran and its proxies in the region have been relentlessly attacking Israel since October 7th—on seven fronts—including direct attacks from Iranian soil," Hagari added. "Like every other sovereign country in the world, the state of Israel has the right and the duty to respond. Our defensive and offensive capabilities are fully mobilized. We will do whatever [is] necessary to defend the state of Israel and the people of Israel."
Iran said it launched the October 1 missile attack in retaliation for Israel's targeted killing of longtime Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, the longtime leader of Hezbollah and an IRGC commander who was with him; as well as for the July assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
If the Syrian and Iraqi explosions are confirmed as Israeli strikes, it would mean that Israel is simultaneously attacking at least five nations—Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Syria, and Iraq. In Palestine, the IDF is waging a yearlong war which has killed or wounded more than 153,000 people. Israel's bombardment and ground invasion of Lebanon have killed or wounded thousands of people and displaced more than 1.2 million others.
U.S. officials told media outlets that the Biden administration was informed of Saturday's attacks.
Meanwhile, peace groups in the U.S. warned of the risk of escalation.
"The U.S. should stay out of the conflict between Israel and Iran," Massachusetts Peace Action executive director Brian Garvey said in a statement. "Israel is bombing Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen—picking a fight with almost every one of its neighbors—while escalating its genocide in Gaza."
"The U.S. should not provide assistance for Israel's escalations, which would contravene President [Joe] Biden's stated goal of preventing a wider regional conflict," he continued. "Israeli Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu has long sought to embroil the U.S. in war with Iran, and his efforts to do so now are likely timed to influence the U.S. election."
"The United States should avoid that trap, stop sending weapons into the region, and support urgent talks for ceasefires in Gaza, Lebanon, and between Israel and Iran," Garvey added.
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Iran Forces Fire on Protesters Marking 40 Days Since Mahsa Amini's Death
Meanwhile, Iranian state media said a gunman killed at least a dozen people at a Shi'a shrine in Shiraz, an attack for which the Sunni militant group Islamic State has claimed responsibility.
Oct 26, 2022
Iranian security forces on Wednesday attacked demonstrators marking 40 days of mourning for a young woman whose death in police custody sparked protests across the Middle Eastern country and around the world, while separately, Islamic State claimed responsibility for an attack on a popular Shi'a shrine in the southern city of Shiraz that reportedly killed more than a dozen people.
Wednesday's demonstrations, which reportedly took place in around 30 Iranian cities, were a continuation of nationwide and international protests sparked by the September 16 death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman arrested by so-called morality police three days earlier and reportedly beaten for violating the fundamentalist theocracy's strict Islamic dress code.
An estimated 10,000 people gathered in Amini's hometown of Saqqez in Kurdistan province, where the first of the weekslong protests--many of them led by women and girls--erupted after the aspiring lawyer's death. News reports and videos posted on social media showed a large crowd of people marching and driving toward the cemetery where Amini is interred.
Al Jazeera reports the crowd chanted slogans including "woman, life, freedom," which became the rallying cry for one of the largest people's uprisings against Iran's dictatorship, which has ruled the country since shortly after the overthrow of its repressive, U.S.-backed monarchy in 1979.
\u201cVideo footage online shows hundreds of men and women gathering near the grave of Mahsa Amini, 40 days after the 22-year-old\u2019s death in police custody \u2935\ufe0f\u201d— Al Jazeera English (@Al Jazeera English) 1666796908
The New York Timesreports that by evening, protests had spread to cities and university campuses across Iran. In the capital Tehran, demonstrators chanted anti-regime slogans in addition to the ubiquitous "woman, life, freedom" refrain.
Women burned their hijabs, the headscarves that are mandatory under the law which Amini was arrested for allegedly violating. Protesters chanted slogans calling for the ouster and death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
According to the Times:
Security forces attacked protesters with tear gas, beat them with batons and in some places, like Tehran, Shiraz, Qazvin, and Saghez, opened fire on them, with pellets, paint, and live bullets, videos showed. Some crowds in the capital fought back, chasing security forces and setting fire to their motorcycles.
Human rights groups say that at least 216 people have been killed during the course of the protests--including 32 children--with thousands more people wounded or arrested.
\u201cIt\u2019s been 40 days since the killing of Jina Mahsa Amini at the hands of Iran\u2019s so-called morality police, sparking continued protests across the country against the Islamic Republic.\n\nHere, protestors chant a simple but central demand: \u201cFreedom, freedom, freedom!\u201d\u201d— Assal Rad (@Assal Rad) 1666800521
Meanwhile, the Sunni militant group Islamic State said it was responsible for an attack on the Shah Cheragh shrine and mosque in Shiraz, where a gunman killed at least a dozen religious pilgrims shortly before evening prayers, according to Iranian state media.
"This crime will definitely not go unanswered," Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said in response to the massacre, "and the security and law enforcement forces will teach a lesson to those who designed and carried out the attack."
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