Trump has repeatedly left open the option of new military action against Iran after Washington backed and joined Israel’s 12-day war in June aimed at degrading Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.
A fortnight of protests starting in late December shook the clerical leadership under supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but the movement has petered out in the face of a crackdown that activists say killed thousands, accompanied by an unprecedented internet blackout.
The prospect of immediate American action against Tehran appears to have receded, with both sides insisting on giving diplomacy a chance even as US media report Trump is still studying options.
Addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump said the United States attacked Iranian uranium enrichment sites last year to prevent Tehran from making a nuclear weapon. Iran denies its nuclear programme is aimed at seeking the bomb.
“Can’t let that happen,” Trump said, adding: “And Iran does want to talk, and we’ll talk.”
In a standoff marked by seesawing rhetoric, Trump had on Tuesday warned Iran’s leaders the US would “wipe them off the face of this earth” if there was any attack on his life in response to a strike targeting Khamenei.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in a speech Thursday accused the United States and Israel of stoking the protests as a “cowardly revenge… for the defeat in the 12-Day War”.
‘Legitimate targets’
Guards commander General Mohammad Pakpour warned Israel and the United States “to avoid any miscalculations, by learning from historical experiences and what they learned in the 12-day imposed war, so that they do not face a more painful and regrettable fate”.
“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and dear Iran have their finger on the trigger, more prepared than ever, ready to carry out the orders and measures of the supreme commander-in-chief – a leader dearer than their own lives,” he said of Khamenei.
Pakpour’s comments came in a written statement quoted by state television marking the national day in Iran to celebrate the Guards, whose mission is to protect the 1979 Islamic revolution from internal and external threats.
Activists accuse the Guards of playing a frontline role in the deadly crackdown on protests.
The group is sanctioned as a terrorist entity by countries including Australia, Canada and the United States, and campaigners have long urged similar moves from the EU and UK.
Another senior military figure, General Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi who leads the Iranian joint command headquarters, meanwhile warned that if America attacked, “all US interests, bases and centres of influence” would be “legitimate targets” for Iran’s armed forces.