Iran has signaled its readiness to fight six months of intense war with the US and Israel, with a top Iranian official vowing retaliation against President Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, Trump ruled out settling the war through negotiations, suggesting the US would eradicate Iran’s military and leadership.
Iran Willing to Fight
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said that the country’s armed forces has the ability to fight an “intense war” for six months against the US and Israel at the current pace of fighting, reported AFP.
The IRGC’s spokesperson, Ali Mohammad Naini, indicated that Iran has only deployed “first and second generation” missiles, suggesting that the coming period will see the use of “advanced and less-used long-range missiles.”
Meanwhile, Iran’s top security official, Ali Larijani, said that the US war on Iran is a result of Trump’s “miscalculation” that he could replicate the Venezuela scenario in Iran.
“Their perception was that it would be like Venezuela – they would strike, take control and it would be over – but now they are trapped,” he said in an interview broadcast on Iranian state TV Saturday.
Retaliation against Trump
Larijani added that the US was now “stuck in the quagmire of its own miscalculations” due to Trump’s failure in achieving his goals through striking Iran. He also vowed retaliation against the US for killing Iranian leadership and people. “We will not let Trump go, he must pay the price,” Larijani said.
In response, Trump dismissed the warning. “I have no idea what he’s talking about, who he is. I couldn’t care less,” Trump said in a phone interview with CBS News.
“He intended to take over the Middle East and he’s conceded and surrendered to all of those countries because of me,” Trump added.
No Negotiations
Trump, for his part, appeared uninterested in negotiating a settlement to the war, reported Reuters. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Saturday, he suggested that destroying Iran’s military and leadership could bring the war to an end.
Trump said that eliminating all potential leaders and eradicating Iran’s military could make negotiations irrelevant. “At some point, I don’t think there will be anybody left maybe to say ‘We surrender,'” he said.
The US President had demanded Iran‘s “unconditional surrender” to stop his air campaign. However, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian dismissed the demand as a “dream that they should take to their grave.”
Boots on the Ground?
Trump suggested that the US could “possibly” send troops to Iran, but this would require a “very good reason,” he told reporters on Saturday.
“Could there be? Possibly, for very good reason, have to be very good reason. I would say if we ever did that they would be so decimated that they wouldn’t be able to fight at the ground level,” he said.
Claiming that Iran was close to acquiring a nuclear weapon, Trump hinted at sending troops “later on” to secure Iran’s enriched uranium stockpiles. Axios reported earlier that the US and Israel were discussing deploying special forces to Iran at a later stage of the war.
Earlier reports indicated that the US was in talks with Iranian Kurdish fighters in Iraq to launch a cross-border military operation in Iran, in support of the ongoing US-Israeli strikes.
However, Trump ruled out the idea, suggesting this move would further complicate the situation. “Yeah, I have ruled it out. I don’t want the Kurds going in. … They’re willing to go in, but I’ve told them, I don’t want them to go in. The war’s complicated enough without having – getting the Kurds involved,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.
Fresh Attacks
The Israeli military launched a fresh wave of attacks across Tehran on Sunday, after it had struck “a number of fuel storage facilities in Tehran” on Saturday, claiming they were used to “operate military infrastructure.”
Furthermore, the Israeli military targeted “key commanders” in the IRGC’s Quds Force with a precision strike on a hotel in Beirut. The Lebanese Health Ministry said the strike killed at least four people at the hotel.
In response, a senior Iranian official warned of the potential repercussions of these attacks for global oil supplies. “If the war continues like this, there’ll be neither a way to sell oil nor the capacity to produce it,” the speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad-Bagher Qalibaf, wrote on X.
“They’re not only burning America’s interests but also the interests of the region’s countries and the world at the feet of Netanyahu’s delusions,” he said.
In the meantime, Iran’s attacks on Gulf countries continued on Sunday morning, with a new wave of drone and missile threats neutralized in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE.
On Saturday, Pezeshkian apologized to Iran’s neighbors for drone and missile attacks, saying that the country’s temporary leadership council agreed on halting attacks unless Iran was targeted by attacks from those countries.
However, Pezeshkian’s office later clarified that he meant “if regional countries do not cooperate in America’s attack on us, we will not attack them.”
