‘I’ve had it’: Trump threatens to ‘blow up’ Iran nuclear sites

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Wednesday repeated his demand for the “unconditional surrender” of Iran, speaking in increasingly stark terms while remaining opaque about whether he would authorize US military strikes on the country's nuclear facilities.

The comments were the president's strongest since he suggested yesterday that US intelligence knows the location of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but would refrain from killing him for now.

Asked by a reporter outside the White House on Wednesday what he meant in a social media post last night calling for Iran’s “unconditional surrender,” Trump doubled down. “That means I’ve had it. I've had it. I give up — no more. Then, we go blow up all the nuclear stuff that's all over the place there,” he said.

The Pentagon has been readying an array of strike forces for positioning in the Middle East in case Trump decides to launch US airstrikes against Iran’s subterranean Fordow nuclear facility. 

The USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group is expected to deploy to Europe next week, a US official confirmed to Al-Monitor, positioning a third US aircraft carrier closer to the Israel-Iran conflict.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to launch strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities if its leaders do not give up the enrichment program via a diplomatic settlement. During his first term in office in 2018, Trump unilaterally withdrew from the multinational nuclear accord put in place by the Obama administration restricting Iran’s enrichment. 

The president equivocated on Wednesday when asked whether he would authorize US military strikes on Iran, however. “I may do it, I may not do it,” Trump said. “I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do.”

Meanwhile, over on Capitol Hill, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declined to answer when asked by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) whether the White House had asked him to provide options for strikes against Iran. 

Last week, the top US commander in the region told House lawmakers he had provided "a wide range" of military options against Iran to Hegseth and Trump.

“I don’t know how much longer it’s going to go on. They’re totally defenseless. They have no air defense whatsoever. We’ve totally captured the air,” Trump said on Wednesday.

The Pentagon has said the military assets it is assembling in the region — including a second aircraft carrier strike group — are for defensive purposes. On Tuesday defense officials denied that any US military aircraft had penetrated Iranian airspace or been involved in offensive operations against Iran since the Israeli campaign kicked off on June 13.

US military officials are still awaiting orders to strike from the White House. "Anything could happen," a defense official speaking on the condition of anonymity told Al-Monitor.

A day before the Israeli offensive, Iran’s defense minister threatened to strike US bases in the region if his country were to come under attack. As many as 40,000 US troops remain in the region, most of them stationed within range of Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal.

On Wednesday, the US Embassy in Israel announced it would arrange evacuation flights for US citizens.

The US president’s comments came just hours after Khamenei struck a defiant stance in a prerecorded speech, saying Israel had “made a grave mistake” and “must be punished.”

“The Iranian nation will not capitulate to anyone in the face of coercion,” Khamenei said, saying the United States will suffer “irreparable” harm if it enters the conflict militarily on Israel’s side.

Outside the White House on Wednesday, Trump further claimed that Iranian officials had expressed openness to dialogue with the United States. “They even suggested to come to the White House” for talks, Trump said, calling the move “courageous, but, y’know, not easy for them to do.”

Iran’s diplomatic mission to the United Nations in New York flatly denied Trump’s claim. 

“No Iranian official has ever asked to grovel at the gates of the White House,” the mission said in a statement posted on social media.