Donald Trump has warned that Iran must come to the table to negotiate a deal over its nuclear programme or face the possibility of air strikes and regime change, capping off a month of bellicose posturing and whiplash inducing U-turns from the US president.
The US president’s demands threaten to open a new chapter in America’s long and tumultuous relationship with Iran, which in just over a decade has seen rapprochement, broken deals, targeted assassinations and unprecedented air strikes.
Here’s a recap of just the last 31 days:
December 29th: ‘We’ll knock the hell out of them’
At the end of December, Trump suggested that Iran was “building up weapons” again, just six months after the US launched unprecedented strikes against the country’s nuclear sites.
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Speaking beside Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Florida, Trump said if Iran was working to build up again “we’ll knock the hell out of them. But, hopefully, that’s not happening.” He added that the consequences of such a move would be “more powerful than the last time”.
After Netanyahu suggested that Iran may be attempting to rebuild its nuclear programme, the country’s foreign minister called for renewed talks with the US.
January 2nd: ‘We are locked and loaded and ready to go’
After Iranians took to the streets in the largest national demonstrations in years, Trump said that if protesters were killed, the US would “come to their rescue”.
“We are locked and loaded, and ready to go,” he said.
The unrest, triggered by an unprecedented decline in the value of the national currency, prompted a renewed escalation in tensions between the US and Iran.
January 6th: ‘Make Iran Great Again’
Days after Trump launched strikes on Venezuela and captured the country’s president Nicolás Maduro, Trump was pictured posing with a “Make Iran Great Again” hat.
With protests in Iran spreading and reports of dozens dead, Trump again said that if Tehran “violently kills peaceful protesters” the US would “come to their rescue”.
January 10th: ‘The USA stands ready to help!!!’
As the reported death toll in the protests soared into the hundreds, Trump was said to be weighing a response. “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!,” the US president said on the Truth Social platform.
The speaker of Iran’s parliament warned that Israeli and US interests in the Middle East would be “legitimate targets” if Washington attacked Iran.
January 13th: ‘Help is on its way
Trump announced new 25 per cent tariffs on countries that do business with Iran, but there was no official documentation from the White House and it appears they were never implemented.
Amid reports of a brutal regime crackdown on the protesters, Trump had initially claimed Iran wanted to negotiate, but later went on to say that he had cancelled all meetings with officials.
“Iranian Patriots, keep protesting – take over your institutions!!! ... help is on its way,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday.
January 14th: ‘The killing in Iran is stopping’
Despite reports that as many as 3,428 Iranians had been killed and that executions as punishment were imminent, Trump said he had been told that “the killing in Iran is stopping ... And there’s no plan for executions.”
It was understood he had reviewed the full range of options to strike Iran but was unconvinced by any single action. His administration had also been lobbied by Middle Eastern allies not to go ahead with strikes, with fears that an attack would lead to a major and intractable conflict across the region.
In the days that followed the huge protest movement slowed under the weight of the regime’s brutal crackdown. Mass arrests followed and many Iranians said they felt betrayed and confused by the president’s sudden about-turn.
January 22nd: ‘We have a lot of ships going that direction’
After several days which saw Trump distracted by anti-Ice protests in Minneapolis and a breakdown in relations with European allies over the fate of Greenland, Trump returned to the issue of Iran, saying “We have a lot of ships going that direction, just in case.”
With the death toll from the protests now said to be more than 5,000 – and reports it could be many times higher than that – Trump’s decision to send the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and several guided-missile destroyers to the Middle East were thought to be in response to the regime’s brutal crackdown.
January 28th: ‘Time is running out’
With US ships now in position in the Middle East, Trump issued an extraordinary threat to Iran, saying of the armada, “like with Venezuela, it is, ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfil its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary.”
Warning that Iran must “make a deal”, Trump said that the country would have “NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS”.
The statement marked a shift in his administration’s rationale for sending the armada to the region, with no mention of the protesters, their demands or the regime’s brutal crackdown. – Guardian
