Trump warns Iran not to kill protesters, door still open to talks

WASHINGTON, Jan 12, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – US President Donald Trump warned Iran Sunday against killing protesters who have risen up over the regime’s downing of a civilian airliner as his defense secretary left the door open to talks with Tehran without preconditions.

Trump’s salvo came as Iran’s Islamic regime faced a challenge from angry
street protests, having come to the brink of war with the US after a series
of tit-for-tat confrontations.

“To the leaders of Iran — DO NOT KILL YOUR PROTESTERS,” Trump tweeted, warning that the world and “more importantly, the USA is watching.”

In an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” just before the tweet, US
Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Trump was still willing to hold talks with Iran’s leaders.

“We’re willing to sit down and discuss without precondition a new way
forward, a series of steps by which Iran becomes a more normal country,”
Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on CBS’s “Face the Nation”.

And if something happened to the protesters? Esper replied: “The president
has drawn no preconditions other than to say we’re willing to meet with the
Iranian government.”

Long-standing US-Iran tensions have soared since January 3 when missiles
fired from a US drone killed a top Iranian commander, Qasem Soleimani, near Baghdad’s airport.

Iran responded with a barrage of missiles at two US bases in Iraq,
inflicting no casualties in what was seen as an attempt to prevent a spiral
of escalation.

But hours later, an Iranian Revolutionary Guard unit shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet shortly after takeoff from Tehran.

The death of all 176 people aboard and Iran’s belated admission its forces
mistook the plane for a cruise missile has set off angry protests against the
regime.

The British ambassador to Iran was briefly arrested Saturday after
attending a memorial service for the victims at Tehran’s Amir Kabir
University.

– ‘Reeling’ –

“I just think you see a very corrupt regime that the Iranian people are
finally standing up and trying to hold them accountable,” Esper said.

On another Sunday talk show, national security advisor Robert O’Brien said
the Iranian regime was “reeling from maximum pressure.”

“They are reeling from their incompetence in this situation. And the
people of Iran are just fed up with it,” he said on ABC’s “This Week”.

“Iran is being choked off, and Iran is going to have no other choice but
to come to the table.”

Trump late Sunday slapped O’Brien down, saying, “Actually, I couldn’t care
less if they negotiate. Will be totally up to them.”

Meanwhile, said Esper, the US believes it has disrupted the plots that it
says precipitated Soleimani’s killing, and expects no further Iranian
retaliation.

Esper and O’Brien defended the intelligence that led the administration to
claim Soleimani was plotting imminent attacks on US troops and diplomats in the region.

But other than in the case of the US embassy in Baghdad, Esper would not
confirm Trump’s claim that four US embassies in the region were among
Soleimani’s targets.

Asked if there was specific evidence in the intelligence to support the
claim, Esper said, “I didn’t see one with regard to four embassies.”

– ‘Fudging intelligence’ –

The administration has come under fire from Democrats — and at least two
Republican senators — for refusing to share the intelligence with members of Congress.

Senior congressional leaders — the so-called Gang of Eight — were
briefed January 8 as skepticism mounted about the administration’s rationale for a killing that raised the risk of war with Iran.

“We had exquisite intelligence and the intelligence showed that they were
looking at US facilities throughout the region,” O’Brien said on NBC’s “Meet
the Press”. “The threat was imminent.”

Adam Schiff, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said there was no
discussion in the briefing given to the Gang of Eight about plots against
four embassies.

“In the view of the briefers, there was plotting, there was an effort to
escalate, a big plan, but they didn’t have specificity,” he said.

“So when you hear the president out there on Fox, he is fudging
intelligence,” he said on “Face the Nation”.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the congressional leadership should have
been informed of the strike against Soleimani in advance.

“I don’t think the administration has been straight with the Congress of
the United States,” she said on “Meet the Press”.