Trump threatens war with Iran if it tries to get nukes - New York Post

President Trump shrugged off attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman as “minor” but said he would wage war if Iran tried to obtain a nuclear arsenal.

“I would certainly go over nuclear weapons,” Trump told Time magazine in an interview published on Tuesday, “and I would keep the other a question mark.”

His administration accused Iran of carrying out attacks on the tankers belonging to Japan and Norway last week but Trump characterized them as limited.

”So far, it’s been very minor,” the president said.

Trump claimed the Gulf of Oman isn’t as strategically important as it once was and the US, unlike Japan and China, don’t rely on the region for their oil.

“Other places get such vast amounts of oil there,” Trump said. “We get very little. We have made tremendous progress in the last two and a half years in energy. And when the pipelines get built, we’re now an exporter of energy. So we’re not in the position that we used to be in in the Middle East where … some people would say we were there for the oil.”

He made his comments downplaying the strikes on the tankers in the interview came as the acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan authorized sending 1,000 troops to the Middle East as a defensive measure to counter Iran’s provocations in the waterway.

They also struck a different tone from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who told CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday that the US is considering a “full range of options” including military force.

Trump said he agrees with the US intelligence community’s conclusion that Iran was behind the attacks but said Tehran has ratcheted down the violent bombast since he became president.

“If you look at the rhetoric now compared to the days when they were signing that agreement where it was always ‘death to America, death to America, we will destroy America, we will kill America,’ I’m not hearing that too much anymore,” Trump said. “And I don’t expect to.”

He was referring to the 2015 nuclear deal the Obama administration negotiated with Iran and a number of world powers – including Russia, China, Germany, France, England and the European Union.

Trump in 2018 withdrew from the accord and reimposed sanctions meant to cripple the country’s economy and force them back to the table for more talks.

Iran on Monday said it would increase the enrichment of uranium to levels above caps in the 2015 pact as the Islamic Republic tries to get help from European countries to get around the sanctions.

The US has also sent the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group, Patriot missile batteries, four B-52 bombers and 12 jet warplanes to the region in response to Iran.

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