MICHIGAN: US President Donald Trump has defended military action against Iran, claiming American strikes had destroyed the country’s nuclear capacity and arguing that Tehran could use a nuclear weapon if allowed to develop one.
Highlighting the existential stakes involved, Trump maintained that pre-emptive action was non-negotiable to prevent a devastating nuclear conflict.
“You want to see problems? You want to see not only energy problems, but death problems? Let them have a nuclear weapon, because they would use it. And I have to do that first. I knew when I did it, we blew the hell out of their nuclear capacity, you know that, and far greater than anyone even thought. It’s gone,” Trump said while talking to FOX 2’s Roop Raj ahead of Michigan rally.
Addressing concerns over global energy market volatility, Trump also claimed that oil transit through the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz had surpassed pre-war levels, crediting the US naval blockade and military operations for maintaining maritime flows.
“I knew that that was going to raise the prices a little bit. Now, if you take a look, the oil, just on the front page of The Wall Street Journal yesterday, oil coming out of the Strait of Hormuz is now topping what—what it was before the war, because we have a blockade and it’s been our military, but our Navy has been incredible,” Trump said.
“We have a naval blockade, and we have more oil coming right now out of the Strait of Hormuz than it was before the war started,” he added.
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said Iran’s policies would remain in place regardless of whether another war breaks out, warning that any further military action against Tehran would be irrational, as per Iranian news agency ISNA.
According to ISNA, Araghchi made the remarks at the opening ceremony of the ‘Martyr Seyyed Kamal Kharrazi Documentation Center and Museum’, a specialised meeting on the role of Seyyed Kamal Kharrazi in building consensus on foreign policy, and the opening of the specialised library of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“Today, talk of war is resurfacing again, but from now on, I am thinking about war; whether war happens or not, our policies remain in place,” Araghchi said. (ANI)
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