US Strikes Hit Nuclear Sites, Iran: Response Coming

By Staff, Agencies

Iran has warned the US to brace for retaliation after Donald Trump’s administration joined the "Israeli" entity in its war against Tehran.

Almost a day after US strikes targeting three key Iranian nuclear sites, Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, told France’s Emmanuel Macron: “The Americans must receive a response to their aggression,” signaling a potential Iranian reprisal that could drag the US into a new, protracted conflict in the Middle East.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said he planned to fly to Moscow to meet Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, on Monday morning for consultations. Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, said any country used by the US to strike Iran “will be a legitimate target for our armed forces,” the state-run IRNA news agency reported.

US Vice-president JD Vance appeared to tone down Trump’s claim that the sites had been “completely and totally obliterated” when he conceded on a US Sunday talk show that he believes the US may have only “substantially delayed” Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon.

Vance said that the US was not “at war with Iran” but “at war with Iran’s nuclear program.” That appeared to be an effort to cool anxieties on the Maga wing of the Republican party that the US could be getting into another “forever war” that could stray, unwittingly, into regime change.

Trump himself raised that prospect on Sunday, sending out another message: “It’s not politically correct to use the term, “Regime Change,” but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!

Earlier, Trump insisted the airstrikes were a limited intervention, urged Tehran to negotiate an end to its attempts to build a nuclear weapon and warned that striking US troops would lead to a brutal US military campaign.

But after one of the most fateful decisions of his second administration, the question of whether the US will become embroiled in a drawn-out war in the Middle East – something he had promised to avoid – now appears to be in the hands of senior officials in Tehran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards.

"Israel" continued to strike targets in Iran on Sunday, claiming that about 30 jets flew sorties against dozens of military targets in Iran, including the Imam Hussein strategic missile command center in the Yazd area, the first against the long-range missile site.

Iranian officials signaled that they would consider disrupting maritime trade in the strait of Hormuz or launching strikes against one of dozens of US bases in the region, as its leadership seeks to project strength after an embarrassing series of raids by "Israeli" and now US warplanes that have operated over the country virtually unopposed.

Iranian sources were quick to deny that the country’s nuclear program was devastated. Senior sources told Reuters that most of the highly enriched uranium at Fordow had been moved elsewhere before the attack.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said diplomacy was not an option after the US attack and that Iran “reserves all rights to defend its security, its interests and its people”.

He said at a press conference in Istanbul: “My country has been under attack, and we have to respond based on our legitimate right to self-defense. We will do that for as long as needed and necessary.”

Araghchi said the US had “blown up diplomacy” that Tehran had been engaged in with Europe and said he would meet Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Monday.