Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned that the United States will suffer “irreparable” damage if it engages in the conflict between Iran and Israel.
“The US President threatens us. With his absurd rhetoric, he demands that the Iranian people surrender to him. They should make threats against those who are afraid of being threatened. The Iranian nation isn’t frightened by such threats,” Khamenei said in a statement. “It isn’t wise to tell the Iranian nation to surrender. What should the Iranian nation surrender to? We will never surrender in response to the attacks of anyone. This is the logic of the Iranian nation. This is the spirit of the Iranian nation.”
If the United States enters the conflict, Khamenei said, it will be “100% to its own detriment.”
“The damage it will suffer will be far greater than any harm that Iran may encounter,” he said, further declaring that the “harm the US will suffer will definitely be irreparable if they enter this conflict militarily.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei similarly told Al Jazeera that American intervention “would be a recipe for an all-out war in the region.”
President Donald Trump said he has not decided whether the U.S. should intervene in the conflict, telling reporters, “I may do it, I may not do it, nobody knows what I’m going to do.”
Discussing potential talks with Iran, Trump added, “I said, ‘it’s really late. You know?’ I said, ‘It’s very late to be talking.’ There’s a big difference between now and a week ago.”
“We’re not looking for long-term war. I only want one thing — Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” the president added. “That’s it.”
