Trump: Iran must surrender or go back to the Stone Age
President Trump has left Iran with no option but to end Operation Epic Fury by surrendering its armed forces and handing over its remaining weapons of mass destruction.
Trump’s demand became abundantly clear after he issued this ominous warning during the course of his Address to the Nation on 1 April:
“I’ve made clear from the beginning of Operation Epic Fury that we will continue until our objectives are fully achieved. Thanks to the progress we’ve made I can say tonight that we are on track to complete all of America’s military objectives shortly, very shortly. We are going to hit them extremely hard. Over the next two to three weeks, we’re going to bring them back to the stone ages, where they belong.”
At the same time Trump promised:
“I want to thank our allies in the Middle East: Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the U.A.E., Kuwait and Bahrain. They’ve been great, and we will not let them get hurt or fail in any way, shape or form.”
As to Iran closing the Hormuz Strait – Trump asserted:
The United States imports almost no oil through the Hormuz Strait and won’t be taking any in the future. We don’t need it. We haven’t needed it, and we don’t need it.
Trump didn’t beat around the bush in sending this further message:
“We have beaten and completely decimated Iran. They are decimated both militarily and economically and in every other way. And the countries of the world that do receive oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage. They must cherish it. They must grab it and cherish it. They can do it easily. We will be helpful, but they should take the lead in protecting the oil that they so desperately depend on.
So to those countries that can’t get fuel, many of which refuse to get involved in the decapitation of Iran, we had to do it ourselves. I have a suggestion. No. 1, buy oil from the United States of America. We have plenty. We have so much. And No. 2, build up some delayed courage — should have done it before, should have done it with us, as we asked. Go to the strait and just take it, protect it, use it for yourselves. Iran has been essentially decimated. The hard part is done, so it should be easy.”
Trump predicted a bleak future for Iran:
“If there is no deal, we are going to hit each and every one of their electric-generating plants very hard and probably simultaneously. We have not hit their oil, even though that’s the easiest target of all, because it would not give them even a small chance of survival or rebuilding. But we could hit it and it would be gone. And there’s not a thing they could do about it. They have no antiaircraft equipment. Their radar is 100 percent annihilated. We are unstoppable as a military force.”
The best UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres could contribute was:
“To the United States and Israel, it is high time to stop the war that is inflicting immense human suffering and already triggering devastating economic consequences.
To Iran, to stop attacking their neighbours.
The Security Council has condemned these attacks and reaffirmed the need to respect navigational rights and freedoms along critical maritime routes, including the Strait of Hormuz.
Conflicts do not end on their own.
They end when leaders choose dialogue over destruction. That choice still exists. And it must be made -- now.”
Calling for Iran’s surrender to spare its 90 million population further deaths and suffering should have been Guterres’s appropriate response.
Perish the thought.
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David Singer is a Sydney lawyer and a foundation member of the International Analysts Network.
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