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MANILA, Philippines — Iran said yesterday the United States’ attack on its nuclear sites has expanded the range of legitimate targets for its armed forces, and called US President Donald Trump a “gambler” for joining Israel’s military campaign against the Islamic Republic.
Since Trump joined Israel’s campaign by dropping massive bunker-buster bombs on Iranian nuclear sites on Sunday morning, Iran has repeatedly threatened to retaliate.
But while it has continued to fire missiles at Israel, it has yet to take action against the US itself, either by firing at US bases or by targeting the 20 percent of global oil shipments that pass near its coast at the mouth of the Gulf.
“Mr. Trump, the gambler, you may start this war, but we will be the ones to end it,” Ebrahim Zolfaqari, spokesman for Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya central military headquarters, said yesterday in English at the end of a recorded video statement.
Iran and Israel traded another wave of air and missile strikes yesterday, as the world braced for Tehran’s response.
Trump’s administration has repeatedly said that its aim is solely to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, not to open a wider war. But in a social media post on Sunday, Trump openly spoke of toppling the hardline clerical rulers who have been Washington’s principal foes in the Middle East since Iran’s 1979 revolution.
“It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!” he wrote.
Experts surveying commercial satellite imagery said it appeared that the US attack had severely damaged the site of Iran’s Fordow nuclear plant, built inside a mountain, and possibly destroyed it and the uranium-enriching centrifuges it housed, although there was no independent confirmation.
Trump called the strike a “Bullseye!!!”
“Monumental Damage was done to all Nuclear sites in Iran,” he wrote. “The biggest damage took place far below ground level.”
More Israeli strikes
Israel’s airstrikes on Iran have met little resistance from Iranian defenses since Israel launched its surprise attack on June 13, killing many of Iran’s top commanders.
The Israeli military said yesterday that about 20 jets had conducted a wave of strikes against military targets in western Iran and Tehran overnight.
In Kermanshah, in western Iran, missile and radar infrastructure was targeted, and in Tehran a surface-to-air missile launcher was struck, it said.
Iranian news agencies reported air defenses had been activated in central Tehran districts, and Israeli air strikes had hit Parchin, the location of a military complex southeast of the capital.
Iran says more than 400 people have been killed in the Israeli attacks, mostly civilians, but has released few images of the damage since the initial days of the bombing. Tehran, a city of 10 million people, has largely emptied, with residents fleeing to the countryside to escape attacks.
Iran’s retaliatory missile strikes on Israel have killed 24 people, all civilians, and injured hundreds, the first time a significant number of Iranian missiles have ever penetrated Israeli defenses.
The Israeli military said a missile launched from Iran in the early hours of Monday had been intercepted by Israeli defenses. Air raid sirens blared overnight in Tel Aviv and other parts of central Israel.
Limited retaliation
Beyond those missiles, Iran’s ability to retaliate is far more limited than a few months ago, since Israel inflicted defeat on Iran’s most feared regional proxy force, Hezbollah in Lebanon, whose downfall was swiftly followed by that of Iran’s most powerful client ruler, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.
Iran’s most effective threat to hurt the West would probably be to restrict global oil flows from the Gulf. Oil prices spiked yesterday at their highest since January. But they have not yet shot up to crisis levels, indicating that traders see a path out of the conflict that avoids serious disruption.
Brent crude futures were down 0.5 percent to $76.64 a barrel as of 0830 GMT, after briefly jumping above $80 at the opening.
Iran’s parliament has approved a move to close the Strait of Hormuz that leads into the Gulf, which would require approval from the Supreme National Security Council, a body led by an appointee of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Attempting to strangle the strait could send global oil prices skyrocketing, derail the world economy and invite conflict with the US Navy’s massive Fifth Fleet that patrols the Gulf from its base in Bahrain.
“It’s economic suicide for them if they do it. And we retain options to deal with that,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.
As Tehran weighed its options, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi was expected to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Monday. The Kremlin has a strategic partnership with Iran, but also close links with Israel.
Speaking in Istanbul on Sunday, Araqchi said his country would consider all possible responses and there would be no return to diplomacy until it had retaliated.
The TASS Russian news agency later quoted him as saying Iran and Russia were coordinating their positions.
OFWs at US bases warned
About 3,000 to 4,000 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) working inside US military bases in the Gulf were advised to take precautionary steps in case Iran unleashes retaliatory ballistic missile strikes against the 40,000 US troops and numerous bases of the US Central Command.
Migration expert Manny Geslani said the US has tens of thousands of troops stationed in the Middle East, including at permanent bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, Arab Gulf countries just across the Persian Gulf from Iran – and much closer than Israel.
Al-Asad Air Base in western Iraq, the largest US deployment in the country, has been a frequent target. There are 2,000 OFWs working in western Iraq, most of them inside the Al-Assad Air Base near Baghdad and in a few other FOBs (forward operating bases) scattered in northern Iraq, including Erbil in the Kurdistan Administrative Region.
In Bahrain, the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet operates with around 8,000 personnel. Qatar hosts Al-Udeid Air Base, the forward headquarters of US Central Command, which can accommodate up to 10,000 troops.
Camp Behring, Ali al-Salem and al-Dhafra are also key air bases located in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.
US diplomatic missions in Iraq and Israel have also begun evacuating staff. Officials warn embassies could be targeted alongside military bases.
Geslani said OFWs must take precautionary measures, be alert and to contact Philippine embassy officials in case of emergency.
‘Be on alert’
Filipinos in the US should be on alert, Philippine Ambassador to Washington Jose Manuel Romualdez said yesterday.
In an interview on dzBB, Romualdez said the US urged heightened awareness and preparedness in light of rising global tensions.
“As always, we tell our kababayans to be on alert,” Romualdez said, urging Filipinos in the US to follow any alerts and notices local officials give out to their communities.
The Philippines expressed serious concern and called for a de-escalation of tensions and for the countries concerned to pursue diplomacy.
“The Philippines is greatly concerned over the developments in the Middle East in these last few hours,” the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said in a statement on Sunday.
“We strongly urge concerned parties to take the path of diplomacy and avoid further escalation of this conflict that could threaten regional and international peace and security,” it said.
The DFA said “the welfare and safety of Filipinos in the region are of primordial concern, and the Philippine government will relentlessly continue to advance and prioritize their protection.”
