A missile launched from Iran seen from the Bureij camp for Palestinian refugees in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday.EYAD BABA/AFP/Getty Images
The world is bracing for a potentially prolonged war in Iran that threatens to spread across the Middle East, with U.S. President Donald Trump pushing for the overthrow of the theocratic regime that governs more than 90 million people, and the dictatorship’s remnants girding for retaliation.
Saturday’s attack on Iran by the U.S. and Israel killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other top members of the country’s regime.
On Sunday, both Mr. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to keep the war going.
“Combat operations continue at this time in full force and they will continue until all of our objectives are achieved. We have very strong objectives,” Mr. Trump said in a video address.
He paid tribute to the three U.S. service members who have been killed so far and said, “There will likely be more before it ends – that’s the way it is.”
Israel said it launched another wave of strikes on Iran on Sunday as Iranians grappled with uncertainty after the killing of their supreme leader in U.S. and Israeli attacks that threaten to destabilize the wider Middle East. Ciara Lee reports.
Reuters
Mr. Netanyahu, in a video from Israel’s defence ministry, said his country’s forces were hitting Tehran with “growing intensity, which will continue to increase in the upcoming days.”
The United Nations Security Council, meanwhile, is set to gather Monday, where the countries are almost certain to clash again.
At an emergency session of the council on Saturday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the U.S. and Israel had broken international law by attacking Iran. He also castigated Iran for hitting Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates with retaliatory strikes.
He said the fighting had to stop immediately. “The alternative is a potential wider conflict with grave consequences for civilians and regional stability.”
Mike Waltz, the U.S.’s ambassador to the UN, defended the air strikes as necessary, saying, “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.”
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Global markets are steeling themselves for a spike in oil prices as the war could disrupt production in Iran, one of the world’s top-ten producers.
In retaliation for the U.S. attacks, the country could blockade the Strait of Hormuz, a major international shipping lane for moving oil and gas from the Persian Gulf. Tehran has already fired missiles at several other Middle Eastern countries as it tries to hit U.S. bases in the region.
“How this ends is extremely uncertain at this point but in the meantime oil markets will have to face their worst fears,” wrote Amarpreet Singh, a Barclays analyst, in a client note Sunday.
Mr. Trump made clear on Sunday that he would not be heeding any calls to back off, even as he held open the possibility of a negotiated settlement with Iran.
In the video address, Mr. Trump said U.S. and Israeli attacks hit hundreds of targets in Iran, including Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities and air defence systems, and sank nine naval ships.
Analysis: Both the U.S. and Iran could use oil as a weapon of mass destruction. They may not
He called for “Iranian patriots who yearn for freedom” to rise up against the government and “take back your country.” And he asked members of the Iranian military and security forces to surrender.
“Lay down your arms and receive full immunity, or face certain death. It will be certain death – won’t be pretty,” he said.
In an interview with The Atlantic magazine on Sunday, Mr. Trump said he would be talking with unspecified members of Iran’s regime. “They want to talk and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them. They should have done it sooner,” he said.
The President will return to the White House Sunday from Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate, where he watched the attack on Iran unfold on Saturday. Vice-President JD Vance and other administration officials watched the air strikes from the situation room in the White House.
Eyewitness video released on Feb. 28 showed crowds in the Iranian town of Galleh Dar toppling a monument dedicated to the Islamic Republic's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Reuters
On Capitol Hill, Democrats and some Republicans are expected to try to force votes on a war powers resolution this week in a bid to rein in Mr. Trump’s ability to attack Iran without legislative approval.
The exact timing is in flux: The Senate is scheduled to sit on Monday and the House of Representatives will return on Tuesday. It could take some procedural manoeuvring to bring the measures to a vote without the support of leaders of Mr. Trump’s Republican Party, which holds a majority in both chambers.
One plan to force a war powers resolution vote will come from Thomas Massie, the maverick Kentucky Republican, and Ro Khanna, the leftist California Democrat, who previously successfully passed the measure requiring the release of the Epstein files over attempts to obstruct it by Republican leaders.
But Democrats will not be able to count on their entire caucus backing the move. “Committed Democrat here. I’m a hard no. My vote is Operation Epic Fury,” Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, a staunch supporter of Israel, wrote on X.