There are signs that President Trump may be about to dramatically escalate the war on Iran – again.
After a Friday Camp David meeting of Trump with his cabinet, the State Department issued a warning on Saturday advising Americans in the Middle East that they should leave or otherwise take measures to provide for their security and Americans considering travel to or through the region should seriously reconsider those plans. “U.S. diplomatic facilities, including outside the Middle East, have been targeted,” said a statement issued by the Bureau of Consular Affairs. “Iran and groups supportive of Iran may target other U.S. interests overseas or at locations associated with the United States and Americans throughout the world, including U.S. businesses and other institutions.” US embassies all over the region have also issued country specific warnings.
The travel advisories come after President Trump told reporters on Friday that the US would be hitting Iran “very hard.” He had also threatened a few days ago that if Iran didn’t stop hitting ships in the Strait of Hormuz that the U.S. would target civilian infrastructure in Iran, including power plants and bridges.
CBS News reported that multiple sources had informed them that “the United States and Israel are planning what would be one of the harshest bombing campaigns to date against energy infrastructure targets in Iran… There was some discussion about trying to conclude by the time financial markets open Monday because of concern about how the bombings will affect the U.S. and global economy, but an end point wasn’t locked in.” .’”
In turn, Iran’s Armed Forces are reported to have entered “the highest state of readiness, changing to wartime protocols” and are issuing warnings of their own, should Trump order the strikes on infrastructure that he has threatened. Mohammad Mokhber, a senior advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader, warned that any targeting of Iran’s vital assets would carry consequences far beyond the immediate battleground, destabilizing the global order built by Western powers over centuries. “Any aggression against Iran’s infrastructure directly awakens the fault lines upon which 250 years of your hegemony’s architecture has been built,” Mokhber stated, reported WANA. “When the pillars of this system collapse, there will be no command center left to lead, nor any market left to plunder.”
In a statement shared on social media, Iranian-American international affairs analyst Mohammad Marandi stated that recent rhetoric from Washington indicates a potential and imminent escalation across the region. “Based on statements from the Trump regime, it seems quite possible that after months of barbaric threats, tonight will be the last night of normality in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, the UAE, and possibly Oman,” Marandi wrote. He explicitly warned that any military action against Iranian civilian targets would trigger a devastating and direct response against regional nations hosting U.S. interests or facilitating the strikes, including Israel and Jordan.
