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Donald Trump asked his top advisers last week about the possibility of attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming weeks, according to a New York Times report.
During a meeting in the Oval Office on Thursday, the outgoing US President asked several senior advisers, including Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley , “if he had options to take action against Iran’s main nuclear site in the coming weeks,” the newspaper says.
Senior officials “deterred the president from going ahead with a military strike,” warning him that an attack could escalate into a broader conflict in the final weeks of his presidency, writes the Times.
Trump reportedly asked the question after a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran was still storing 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.
Iran has long been Trump’s black beast, reintroducing sanctions and then tightening them further after scrapping the nuclear deal.
European partners in the deal, who have struggled to keep the deal afloat despite Trump’s efforts to torpedo it, are expecting a renewed diplomatic focus after Joe Biden’s election victory on Nov. 3, although Trump refuses to admit. the 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 dismantling when he takes office next year.
