Fears of US strikes on Iran rise in Middle East; Iranian FM says “there is no plan” to hang people
WASHINGTON
US President Donald Trump said that killings in Iran’s crackdown on nationwide protests were subsiding and he believed there was no plan for large-scale executions of protesters, as analysts and diplomats warned of possible risks from a US military intervention. Trump’s comments during an Oval Office event come as fears have escalated in the Middle East that the United States could launch strikes on Iran, following the US president’s repeated threats to intervene on behalf of protesters.
He did not rule out possible US military intervention, however. Some experts and regional diplomats warn that military intervention could backfire by smothering protests, fueling an intensified crackdown on those who participated and triggering retaliatory Iranian missile attacks on US bases in the Middle East. In a more extreme scenario, several said, US strikes might hasten the government’s collapse, possibly unleashing chaos across the nation of 90 million, encouraging insurgencies by minority Kurdish and Baluch separatists and leaving Iran’s nuclear and missile programs unsecured.
Still, several US intelligence assessments earlier this week concluded that while the protests posed a serious challenge, the government did not appear close to collapsing, according to four knowledgeable sources. “We have restive ethnic minorities. We have loose undeclared fissile materials. We have dispersed missile stocks with no command and control, and we have had for over a decade refugee flows … and significant atrocities are happening,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, an analyst with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. “All the fears that would come with regime change would be expedited.”
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said “there is no plan” by Iran to hang people, when asked about the anti-government protests in the Middle Eastern nation. “There is no plan for hanging at all,” the foreign minister told Fox News in an interview on the “Special Report with Bret Baier” show.
“Hanging is out of the question,” he said. The protests appear to be the biggest domestic challenge Iran’s clerical establishment has faced since it took power in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, with massive crowds demanding the government’s ouster and clashing with security forces.
An Iranian official has said more than 2,000 people have died since the protests erupted on December 28. A rights group put the number of deaths at more than 2,600.
Many experts believe the toll is much higher. The White House and the Iranian delegation to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump on Wednesday said “very important sources on the other side” had reported that killings in Iran’s crackdown were subsiding, and that he believed there was currently no plan for large-scale executions. He did not rule out potential US military action, saying “we are going to watch what the process is” before noting the US administration received a “very good statement” from Iran.
