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- US President Donald Trump asked his aides about the attack on the Iran nuclear site.
- The likely target would have been Natanz.
- The New York Times reported that high-level advisers persuaded Trump not to go ahead with the strike.
Two months before he left office, President Donald Trump asked his top advisers about the possibility of attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, The New York Times reported Monday.
READ | Unraveling the Iran nuclear deal: a timeline
During a meeting in the Oval Office last Thursday, the outgoing Republican leader asked several key attendees, including Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, “Yes he had options to take action against Iran’s main nuclear site in the coming weeks, “the newspaper said.
Senior officials “dissuaded the president from going ahead with a military attack,” warning him that such an attack could escalate into a broader conflict in the final weeks of his presidency, the Times wrote.
Trump reportedly asked the question after a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran continued to store uranium.
According to the Times, the most likely target of such an attack would have been Natanz, where the IAEA reported that “Tehran’s uranium reserves were now 12 times larger than allowed by the nuclear deal Trump abandoned in 2018”, three years later. it was signed in an attempt to curb Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
Sanctions
Iran has long been Trump’s bête noire, first reintroducing sanctions and then tightening them further after scrapping the nuclear deal.
European partners in the deal have struggled to keep the deal afloat despite Trump’s efforts to torpedo it, and they expect a renewed diplomatic approach after Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory on Nov. 3, though Trump refuses to admit. their defeat.
The Trump administration has vowed to step up punitive measures, which some critics see as an attempt to build a “wall of sanctions” that Biden would have a hard time breaking down once he takes office.
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