President Donald Trump's administration is trying to articulate what it ultimately aims to achieve in Iran, after directly involving the US in the Israel-Iran war over the weekend.
Senior administration officials took to the TV news shows on Sunday to assert that Washington is not trying to topple the government in Iran. They claimed that the US bombing raids, in the early hours of Sunday Tehran time, caused irreparable damage to Iran's nuclear program. And they suggested that the US will not carry out additional air strikes unless Iran retaliates against US interests in the region or targets vessel traffic in the strait of Hormuz.
But Trump then contradicted his own administration's message by posting on his social media platform: "If the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn't there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!"
Iran has responded with tough rhetoric to the US air strikes but did not hit back at US interests across the region, even though Iran and Israel continued to exchange missile attacks.
Tehran said today that US airstrikes have expanded the range of legitimate military targets for its armed forces, while a senior Iranian lawmaker said the parliament has concluded that the strait of Hormuz "should be closed".
The strait of Hormuz is the world's most critical oil transit route, with around 17mn b/d of crude and refined products — roughly a quarter of global seaborne oil trade — passing through it. Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the strait in past confrontations but has never followed through on that rhetoric. In the past, Tehran has targeted or seized vessels transiting the waterway, prompting some shipowners to consider alternative routes.
Crude oil futures, which in the run-up to the US attack already reflected risk premiums associated with potential disruption to oil flows from the Mideast Gulf, rose in early trading in Asia today but eased later in the day.
Trump, who has frequently touted declines in oil prices during his second administration, posted today: "EVERYONE, KEEP OIL PRICES DOWN. I'M WATCHING! YOU'RE PLAYING RIGHT INTO THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY. DON'T DO IT!"
He then posted, "To The Department of Energy: DRILL, BABY, DRILL!!! And I mean NOW!!!"
The Energy Department cannot mandate how much crude US oil companies produce, but it does control the US emergency oil stocks.
Uncertainty ahead
The Pentagon has been more restrained than Trump and his national security advisers in providing an assessment of the air strikes. Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, general Dan Caine said on Sunday that initial assessments indicated that Iran's nuclear facilities suffered "extremely severe damage and destruction" but noted that it was too early to say whether Iran maintains any nuclear capability.
Trump by contrast posted about "monumental damage" and asserted that "obliteration is an accurate term" in reference to Iran's nuclear sites.
"Sometimes we have a tendency to think that a military solution can insert some certainty into a situation," said retired general Joe Votel, who commanded Middle East-based US forces in 2016-19. "But I think what we're seeing here is that there still is a significant amount of uncertainty about what is going to take place."
It will take time to accurately assess the impact of US air strikes on Iran's nuclear program, Votel said today during a discussion hosted by think tank the Middle East Institute.
The UN's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, said on 22 June that no increases in off-site radiation levels had been reported following the US strikes.
The eventual shape of Iran's response is a further cause of uncertainty, Votel said. "Do they have a surprise for us, if they held something in reserve that we're going to see revealed here?" An Iranian counter-attack aimed at the US would invite more US strikes. But if Iran's response proves muted or non-existent, "will we be going back?," he asked. "And then, how does all this conclude?"
The US embassy in Qatar today issued a "shelter in place" warning to US citizens in the country, which hosts the largest US air force base in the region. The US embassy did not cite a specific threat, noting that the warning was out of an "abundance of caution". The UK embassy issued a similar warning to British citizens.
