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Donald Trump announced the US had launched a ‘massive and ongoing operation’ in Iran.
The move followed several ‘pre-emptive’ strikes on Tehran by Israeli forces early on Saturday morning.
Several columns of smoke were pictured rising from buildings within the Iranian capital this morning, home to 9.7million people.
The US president vowed to forestall the regime, led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, from ‘threatening America and their core national security interests by’razing their missile industry to the bottom’.
In an eight-minute speech uploaded to his Truth Social platform, he urged Iranian people to ‘take over your government’.
Here’s all you have to learn about what is going on and why.
Why have the US and Israel launched strikes on Tehran now?
The most recent intervention comes as talks between the US and Iran led to Geneva on Thursday and not using a breakthrough despite ‘significant progress’.
On Friday night, Trump insisted he had yet to make a ‘final decision’ on whether to launch a military intervention but was ‘not glad’ with Tehran following the most recent impasse.
Nevertheless, in an indication of what was to come back, the US was urging its residents in Iran to depart ‘immediately’ while non-emergency embassy staff in Israel were told they might leave the country while industrial flights were still available.
By Saturday morning, columns of smoke were reported in Tehran because of this of ‘pre-emptive’ Israeli strikes.
Amongst Trump’s key demands to Iran was an end to uranium enrichment, which Tehran had stopped for the reason that US bombed three sites last June.
However the UN’s nuclear watchdog said there was growing concern after it had been prevented from accessing the uranium sites.
Trump had assured the international community that Iranian nuclear capabilities had been ‘totally obliterated’ after the US dropped ‘bunker buster’ bombs on Iranian sites last summer.
Nevertheless the president made the identical pledge again in his speech today.
He said: ‘America military has undertaken a large and ongoing operation to forestall this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests. We’re going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the bottom. It’ll be totally, again obliterated.
‘We’re going to annihilate their navy. We’re going to be certain that the region’s terrorist proxies can not destabilise the region or the world, and attack our forces, and not use their IEDs – or roadside bombs, as they’re sometimes called – to so gravely wound and kill hundreds and hundreds of individuals including many American. And we’ll be certain that Iran doesn’t obtain a nuclear weapon.’
Trump told Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to face down or ‘face certain death’.
Emboldened Trump believes Iran is a threat to West
Dr Dafydd Townley, senior teaching fellow in International Security on the University of Portsmouth, said Trump sees Iran as a significant destabilising think about the Middle East, which could explain his desire to get entangled.
He said that while the president favoured a more Western-friendly government in Iran, but had also been torn between direct military motion and taking a diplomatic route including supporting protesters and opposition figures.
Nevertheless Trump is emboldened following events in Venezuela last month, during which US forces removed Nicolas Maduro in a slick overnight operation in Caracas.
(Picture: AP)
Dr Townley added: ‘It is sort of interesting that Trump, who has been very reluctant to get entangled in international causes before, has suddenly turn out to be very vocal during the last two months.’
Trump also faces some resistance throughout the MAGA movement, sections of which have urged him to prioritise domestic issues over foreign interference.
Vice chairman JD Vance is regarded as amongst figures in Trump’s cabinet most against military intervention within the Middle East.
What does this mean for Ali Khamenei’s regime?
While Trump has urged Iranians to overturn the present regime, it seems unlikely any attacks may have that impact just yet.
Cell phone services were reported down across Iran on Saturday morning, with web outages having turn out to be a routine occurrence for the reason that wave of protests which erupted in December.
In response to reports, Khamenei was not in Tehran throughout the strikes and had been moved to a ‘secure location’.
The Ayatollah has not been seen in public in Iran for several days.
Hundreds were thought to have been killed after the federal government launched a brutal crackdown on dissent following weeks of unrest.
Experts also imagine that key resistance figures are keen to distance themselves from the US on account of widespread anti-West sentiment.
Many Iranians have expressed fears that what happened in 1953 could occur again – a Western-backed coup, just like the one orchestrated within the 50s by the US and UK, could leave many Iranians and not using a say of their future.
There’s no appetite within the international community for the chaos seen within the aftermath of US intervention in Libya and Iraq.
Dr Andreas Krieg, associate professor within the Department of Defence Studies at King’s College London, argued that even when strikes did topple the Ayatollah’s iron grip on power, the world wouldn’t be prepared for the ability vacuum it will create.
He said: ‘‘The largest danger will not be only chaos in Tehran, but fragmentation within the provinces, score-settling amongst armed actors, and a scramble over strategic assets and prison.’
Get in contact with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
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