A senior U.S. diplomat said Friday that the United States could strike Iran as soon as this weekend, and Tehran answered Saturday with a vow to keep American warships out of the Persian Gulf.
“Could there be a strike this weekend? Absolutely,” Tom Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria, said in an interview with online commentator Mario Nawfal, the Times of Israel reported.
“The president is very clear. He’s open and available and accessible to a deal. And we’ve been at the table for months and months and months,” Barrack said.
He described the U.S. as “in a bargain for unfreezing assets, releasing sanctions, no more kinetic engagement, supplying the needed help to Israel, our ally.”
“If you keep threatening the world, our allies, the Gulf, there will be a consequence. The consequence won’t be regime change,” Barrack added. “The problem with regime change always is, what’s the day-two scenario?”
Barrack does not have a direct role on Iran policy, AFP noted, and Trump has said strikes would not resume before the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
The Times of Israel noted that it is often unclear whether Barrack’s public remarks represent administration policy or his personal views.
His comments on regime change put him at odds with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces elections Tuesday and has repeatedly vowed in recent days to topple Iran’s clerical government.
Tehran Responds
“We will not allow U.S. military ships in the Persian Gulf under any circumstances and at any time,” Iran’s armed forces chief of staff, Ali Abdollahi, said Saturday, according to Iranian state television.
“The US president must dream of seeing the armed forces enter the Persian Gulf. He will take that dream to his grave,” Abdollahi said.
Trump, leaving the White House for a rally in Florida on Friday, described Iran as a failing nation and said the U.S. could end the war quickly or keep up economic pressure, Iran International reported.
“We could if we wanted to just take all of the oil. We could take the whole country,” Trump said. “The question is, do we want to finish it off or do we just want to let it wither?”
The Atlantic has reported that Trump is considering several days of renewed strikes after the midterms, though U.S. officials stressed that no decision has been made.
The standoff is weighing on markets. Brent crude rose 3.5% Friday to more than $117 a barrel, its highest level since March, up from less than $97 at the start of October, according to CBS News.
Foreign ministers from Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt met in Istanbul on Friday and urged restraint and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said a new escalation between Iran and the United States “would leave no winners and would likely have very serious consequences for hydrocarbon prices.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is expected to travel to Moscow next week for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iran’s foreign minister said.
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