US President Donald Trump said Friday he had saved Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khameni from assassination and lashed out at the supreme leader for ingratitude, declaring he would order more bombing if the country tried to pursue nuclear weapons. In an extraordinary outburst on his Truth Social platform, Trump blasted Tehran for claiming to have won its war with Israel and said he was halting work on possible sanctions relief.
Trump said that the United States would bomb Iran again “without question” if the country was still able to enrich nuclear-weapons grade uranium following US strikes.
Trump posted: “I knew EXACTLY where he was sheltered, and would not let Israel, or the U.S. Armed Forces, by far the Greatest and Most Powerful in the World, terminate his life.”
“I SAVED HIM FROM A VERY UGLY AND IGNOMINIOUS DEATH, and he does not have to say, “THANK YOU, PRESIDENT TRUMP!'”
Trump said that he had been working in recent days on the possible removal of sanctions against Iran, one of Tehran’s long-term demands.
“But no, instead I get hit with a statement of anger, hatred, and disgust, and immediately dropped all work on sanction relief, and more,” Trump added, exhorting Iran to return to the negotiating table. Iran’s foreign minister on Wednesday denied it is set to resume nuclear talks with the United States, after Trump said at a NATO summit in The Hague that negotiations were set to begin again next week. Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff had expressed hope “for a comprehensive peace agreement.”
Asked earlier in a White House press conference whether he would consider fresh air strikes if last week’s sorties were not successful in ending Iran’s nclear ambitions, Trump said: “Sure. Without question. Absolutely.” Trump added that Khamenei and Iran “got beat to hell” in the hostilities involving the United States and Israel and that “it was a great time to end it.”
He had said during the press conference that he would be “putting out a little statement” on Khamenei’s comments, which appeared to be the Truth Social post.
In the post, he accused Khamenei of “blatantly and foolishly” saying Iran won the 12-day war with Israel, adding: “As a man of great faith, he is not supposed to lie.” The war of words come as a fragile ceasefire holds in the conflict between Israel and Iran.
Speculation had however swirled about the fate of Khamenei. In a televised speech on Thursday — his first appearance since the ceasefire — Khamenei hailed what he described as Iran’s “victory” over Israel, vowed never to yield to US pressure and insisted Washington had been dealt a humiliating “slap”.
“The American president exaggerated events in unusual ways, and it turned out that he needed this exaggeration,” Khamenei said, rejecting Trump’s claims Iran’s nuclear program had been set back by decades.
In related news, Trump has tweeted that it’s time to end the war in Gaza, and in response the Israeli military is ordering Palestinians to leave northern Gaza for extreme southwestern Gaza at the Egyptian border. There are increased Israeli army attacks and aerial bombings in many places near Al-Mawasi, making it difficult for people to flee there.
It is imperative to understand that events that seem coincidental involving Israel and the United States are actually closely coordinated and deliberate. It is not mere coincidence that on a Sunday morning in North America there is of a sudden a series of bombings and other attacks breaking out across southern Gaza while hundreds of thousands of refugees are being ordered to leave the north immediately. Many people are at church, or sleeping in, or enjoying a June weekend.
I’m wondering if very shortly there will be renewed carpet bombing of Iran for days, with US and Israel coordinating their forces. That could conceal from most media a renewed campaign of Israeli military air and ground attacks throughout the northern Gaza and into the south. The time is nearing when Israel is going to drive the roughly 1,800,000 surviving Palestinians completely out of Gaza into the Egyptian desert. What better moment than to do it in the middle of a large, regional, illegal war of Trump’s choice?
