After Iran’s Drone Attack, Trump Says This Country ‘Will Not Stand for It’
WASHINGTON — President Trump blamed someone “loose and stupid” in Iran for shooting down a United States surveillance drone early Thursday, and in bellicose comments warned that “this country will not stand for it, that I can tell you.”
But the president at the same time appeared to offer a way out of the crisis, saying that he suspected it was some individual in Iran who “made a big mistake,” even as Iran had taken credit for the strike and asserted that the high-altitude American drone was operating over Iranian air space, which American officials denied.
Mr. Trump drew an important distinction in stating that the episode would have been far more serious if the aircraft had been a piloted vehicle, and not a drone. It made “a big, big difference” that an American pilot was not threatened, he said.
Both sides said the downing occurred at 4:05 a.m. Iranian time on Thursday, or 7:35 p.m. on Wednesday in Washington. The drone “was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile system while operating in international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz,” the United States Central Command said in a statement. “This was an unprovoked attack on a U.S. surveillance asset in international airspace.”
Washington and Tehran accused the other of being the aggressor, increasing tensions even as fears of war have erupted between the two countries. Asked what would happen next, Mr. Trump told reporters on Thursday afternoon, “Let’s see what happens.”
The White House invited the leadership from Congress to a classified briefing Thursday afternoon about Iran.
Iran’s destruction of the high-altitude American drone, which was developed to evade the very surface-to-air missiles used to bring it down, surprised some American Defense Department officials, who interpreted it as a show of how difficult Tehran can make things for the United States as it deploys more troops and surveillance assets to the region.
Where U.S. Said Drone Was Shot Down
Lt. Gen. Joseph Guastella, the Air Force commander for the Central Command region in the Middle East, said the attack could have endangered “innocent civilians,” even though officials at Central Command continued to assert that the drone was over international waters. He said that the closest that the drone got to the Iranian coast was 21 miles.
The episode comes just days after American officials blamed Iran for recent attacks on foreign shipping tankers that also took place near the Strait of Hormuz, the vital waterway for much of the world’s oil, and an accusation that Iran has denied.
Mr. Trump’s comments in the Oval Office reflected the longstanding tension between the president’s desire to be seen as tough on the world stage and his campaign promise to make sure that the United States did not get tangled in more foreign wars.
The president has embraced a reputation as someone who punches back when he is challenged. For example, just months into his tenure, Mr. Trump launched 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at an air base in Syria after a chemical weapon attack.
But he has often talked about ending American involvement in long-running conflicts abroad, describing his “America First” agenda as having little room for being the world’s police force. In a tweet in January, he said he hoped that “Endless Wars, especially those which are fought out of judgment mistakes … will eventually come to a glorious end!”
In Washington, the White House was concerned enough by early reports of the strike that senior officials were summoned Wednesday evening to discuss the matter. On Wednesday night, Mr. Trump appeared to dismiss talk of war with Iran at the end of a phone interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News. Asked by Mr. Hannity about his promise not to allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, Mr. Trump said, “I would say if I were you, don’t worry about a thing.”
Mr. Trump’s top national security aides were heading to the White House on Thursday to meet about Iran. Both Patrick Shanahan, the acting defense secretary who resigned on Tuesday after reports about his divorce, and his successor, Mark Esper, the Army secretary who will take the position on Sunday, were at the White House for the meeting, Pentagon officials said.
“I think it’s a dangerous situation,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters on Thursday. “This is a dangerous neighborhood.”
She warned against actions that could damage the country’s interest in the region. “Let’s make sure that we don’t have a beating of the drum for something without the clarity of fact involved,” she added. “Let’s get the facts as to how we got to this place.”
According to Iranian media, a foreign minister spokesman there said that flying a drone into Iranian airspace was an “aggressive and provocative” move by the United States.
Hossein Salami, the commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said crossing the country’s border was “our red line,” the semiofficial Mehr news agency reported. He said shooting down the drone was evidence of “how the Iranian nation deals with its enemies.”
“We are not going to get engaged in a war with any country, but we are fully prepared for war,” Mr. Salami said at a military ceremony in Sanandaj, Iran, according to a translation from Press TV, a state-run news outlet. “Today’s incident was a clear sign of this precise message, so we are continuing our resistance.”
Iranian media said the drone had flown over Iranian territory unauthorized, and reported that it had been shot down in the province of Hormozgan, along the country’s southern coast on the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.
Both the United States and Iran identified the aircraft as an RQ-4 Global Hawk, a surveillance drone made by Northrop Grumman.
As Mr. Trump has announced the deployment of an additional 2,500 troops — alongside more surveillance equipment — to the Middle East to combat what the United States has described as a rising Iranian threat, Iranian forces are now demonstrating that they have the ability to restrict the American military’s ability to do just that.
“This was a show of force — their equivalent of an inside pitch,” said Derek Chollet, a former assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs during the Obama administration. “This is another example of their own ‘maximum pressure’ strategy,” he added, in a reference to the Trump administration’s so-called maximum pressure strategy that has put a stranglehold on Iranian oil exports over the past year.
But James G. Stavridis, who retired as a four-star admiral after serving as NATO commander, warned that the two countries were in a dangerous game that could quickly spiral out of control. He described Iran’s downing of the drone, which costs about $130 million, as a “logical albeit highly dangerous escalatory move by Iran.”
American officials said last week that Iran had fired a surface-to-air missile at a drone over the Gulf of Oman, on the same day that two tanker ships were attacked. United States officials have blamed Iran for the attacks on the tankers, as well as similar attacks in May against four tankers near the United Arab Emirates, a charge that has been strenuously denied in Tehran.
On Wednesday, United States officials sought to bolster their case that Iran was responsible for last week’s tanker attacks, telling journalists at a briefing that fragments recovered from one of the tankers bore a “striking resemblance” to limpet mines used by Iran.
A Navy official also said the investigation had found fingerprints and other valuable information at the scene; earlier, the United States had released video of what it said was an Iranian boat crew removing a limpet mine from one of the tankers.
Last year, Mr. Trump pulled the United States out of the 2015 nuclear pact with Iran, over the objections of China, Russia and American allies in Europe. He has also imposed punishing economic sanctions on Iran, trying to cut off its already limited access to international trade, including oil sales.
Iran has warned of serious consequences if Europe does not find a way around those sanctions, though it has denied involvement in the attacks on tankers near the vital Strait of Hormuz. On Monday, Iran said it would soon stop abiding by a central component of the nuclear deal, the limit on how much enriched uranium it is allowed to stockpile.
Reporting was contributed by Eileen Sullivan and Emily Cochrane in Washington, David D. Kirkpatrick, Megan Specia and Michael Wolgelenter in London, and Daniel Victor in Hong Kong.
.jpg)
0 Comments