In a Wednesday social media post, President Donald Trump said reports that the U.S. is going to blow Iran “to smithereens” are “GREATLY EXAGGERATED,” and that he would prefer a nuclear peace agreement with the Middle Eastern nation.
This announcement comes after a memorandum calling for “maximum pressure” to be imposed on Iran and on the heels of a ceasefire agreement in the Israel-Hamas War. As Trump’s memo noted, Iran has been identified as a backer of Hamas and other terrorist organizations.
“Since its inception in 1979 as a revolutionary theocracy, the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has declared its hostility to the United States and its allies and partners,” said the memo. “Iran remains the world’s leading state sponsor of terror and has aided Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, the Taliban, al-Qa’ida, and other terrorist networks. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) [part of the Iranian Armed Forces] is itself a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.”
It went on to note that the IRCG has targeted the U.S. and other nations in attacks that include assault, kidnapping and murder and that Iran commits human rights abuses, including daily abuse of women. Through its support of Hamas, the memo also said Iran bears responsibility for the Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel that instigated the war.
Trump’s memo also highlighted the dangers of Iran potentially becoming a nuclear power.
“Iran’s nuclear program, including its enrichment- and reprocessing-related capabilities and nuclear-capable missiles, poses an existential danger to the United States and the entire civilized world, it said. “A radical regime like this can never be allowed to acquire or develop nuclear weapons, or to extort the United States or its allies through the threat of nuclear weapons acquisition, development, or use.”
Just before Trump was inaugurated last month, Beth Knobel – a professor of journalism at Fordham University and former CBS News Moscow bureau chief – discussed a 20-year strategic partnership plan between Iran and Russia with Audacy station KCBS Radio. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the U.S. has been aiding in its efforts to fight off Russian attacks.
“This partnership is kind of putting on paper things that have been going on between Iran and Russia,” said Knobel. “Those two countries have moved a lot closer to each other since… the Ukrainian war began, because Iran has been such a help to Russia in getting arms for Ukraine.”
Russia and the U.S. had the world’s largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons as of last March, per the Federation of American Scientists. For years, the U.S. has been on a mission to disarm its stockpile.
In 2015, during the second term of former President Barack Obama, Iran and several world powers, including the U.S., signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which the Council on Foreign Relations said “placed significant restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.”
This relief included the Obama administration drop of secondary sanctions on the oil sector, allowing Iran to ramp up its oil exports, and the release of about $100 billion worth of frozen Iranian assets. According to the CFR, many experts said that agreement would have achieved the goal of halting Iran’s nuclear program for about a decade.
However, President Trump withdrew the United States from the deal in 2018, during his first term in office. He argued that it “failed to curtail Iran’s missile program and regional influence,” the CFR said.
After the U.S. withdrew, Iran resumed its nuclear activities, the CFR added. Although former President Joe Biden said that the U.S. would return to JCPOA if Iran came back into compliance, the countries did not come to a compromise during his term and provisions were set to expire by late 2023. Earlier that year, United Nations inspectors reported Iran had enriched trace amounts of uranium to nearly weapons-grade levels. The New York Times reported Monday that U.S. intelligence indicates Iran has a covert team of scientists working on a potential bomb.
With the continuation of both the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas War in 2024, concerns about nuclear war increased worldwide. Recently, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announced that the Doomsday Clock had slipped to 89 seconds to midnight in part due to these conflicts.
“Iran today stands in breach of its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations by concealing undeclared nuclear sites and material as required by its Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),” said Trump’s memo. “Iran has obstructed IAEA access to its military sites or sites tied to the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, also known as SPND, and to interview nuclear weapons scientists still employed by SPND.”
It further said that: “Public reports indicating that Iran may now be engaged in computer modeling related to nuclear weapons development raise immediate alarm. We must deny Iran all paths to a nuclear weapon and end the regime’s nuclear extortion racket.”
Trump called for Iran to curtail its ballistic missile program and stop its support for terrorist groups. The Hill also reported that while he’s open to talks with Iran, Trump vowed to obliterate them if they attempted to assassinate him.
“I want Iran to be a great and successful Country, but one that cannot have a Nuclear Weapon,” said the president in his Wednesday social media post. He added that there should be a celebration in the Middle East once a nuclear peace agreement is achieved.
As to whether that’s possible, in a January interview with Audacy’s KCBS Radio, Politics and International Relations Professor Eric Lob of Florida International University said that experts agree that Trump was an important factor in finally getting a ceasefire agreement off the ground regarding Israel and Gaza.
“The personal relationship that he has with Israeli Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu in terms of putting together perhaps the right sticks and carrots to convince him to finally agree to a framework cease fire deal in Gaza,” Lob said. Knobel, the other expert interviewed by the station last month, also said that one reason Russian President Vladimir Putin might be hesitant to get closer to Iran is his country’s own ties with Israel, where many Russian immigrants and people with Russian heritage live.
This week, Trump also hinted at his future plans for the Gaza strip, which he said in a social media post should be “turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting.” This proposal has been met with mixed reactions.