{"id":206116,"date":"2020-04-22T13:40:55","date_gmt":"2020-04-22T13:40:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=206116"},"modified":"2020-04-27T07:33:19","modified_gmt":"2020-04-27T07:33:19","slug":"trump-raises-the-stakes-with-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=206116","title":{"rendered":"Trump Raises the Stakes with Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">BREAKING NEWS: Donald Trump orders Navy to &#8216;shoot down and destroy&#8217; Iranian gunboats if they harass American ships in the Gulf in escalation of tensions with Tehran<\/h2>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\">Reuters, AFP and Luke Kenton for the Daily Mail \u2013 April 22, 2020<\/h1>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Trump-Iran-address.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-200657\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Trump-Iran-address.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"540\" height=\"304\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Trump-Iran-address.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Trump-Iran-address-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 540px) 100vw, 540px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he had instructed the U.S. Navy to fire on any Iranian ships that harass it at sea, a week after 11 vessels from Iran&#8217;s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) came dangerously close to U.S. ships in the Gulf.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">&#8216;I have instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea,&#8217; Trump wrote in a tweet, hours after Iran&#8217;s Revolutionary Guards Corps said it had launched the country&#8217;s first military satellite into orbit.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The tweet came amid a re-escalation of tension, with\u00a0Iran&#8217;s Revolutionary Guards saying hours earlier that that they had launched the country&#8217;s first military satellite, which the U.S. regards as a cover for missile development.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">&#8216;The first satellite of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been successfully launched into orbit by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,&#8217; said the Guards&#8217; Sepahnews website.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">I have instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/realDonaldTrump\/status\/1252932181447630848?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 22, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The satellite &#8216;orbited the earth at 264 miles&#8217;, said the website.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">&#8216;This action will be a great success and a new development in the field of space for Islamic Iran,&#8217; the statement added.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The surprise operation comes more than two months after Iran launched but failed to put into orbit another satellite that it said had no military dimensions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Washington says that these satellite launches defy a UN Security Council resolution on ballistic missiles.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">U.S. officials fear that the launches could help Iran develop intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Iran maintains it has no intention of acquiring nuclear weapons, claiming its aerospace activities are peaceful and comply with the UN&#8217;s orders.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">It is not believed that Iran has the technology to miniaturize a nuclear weapon on a ballistic missile.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">And\u00a0Trump&#8217;s intervention is a week after nearly a dozen Iranian naval vessels repeatedly harassed and made &#8216;dangerous&#8217; approaches to American ships conducting operations in the Persian Gulf near Kuwait in a tense exchange that last more than an hour.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">A group of 11 ships with <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/iran\/index.html\"><strong>Iran<\/strong><\/a>&#8216;s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps repeatedly crossed the bows and sterns of the U.S. Navy&#8217;s Bahrain-based 5th Fleet at close range and high speeds &#8211; with one passing within just 10 meters of a Coast Guard cutter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The &#8216;dangerous and provocative actions increased the risk of miscalculation and collision,&#8217; a statement from U.S. Central Command said, adding that U.S commanders on the scene &#8216;retain the inherent right to self-defense.&#8217;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The American vessels included the USS Paul Hamilton, a Navy destroyer; the USS Lewis B. Puller, a ship that serves as an afloat landing base; and the USCGC Maui. Coastguard vessels are part of U.S. forces in the Gulf.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The ships were operating with U.S. Army Apache attack helicopters in international waters, the statement said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-8245187\/Trump-instructs-U-S-Navy-destroy-Iranian-gunboats-harass-ships-sea.html\">Continues \u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Trump issues order to \u201cshoot down and destroy\u201d Iranian gunboats if they harrass U.S. Navy vessels<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":172963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-206116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Iran"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=206116"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206120,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206116\/revisions\/206120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/172963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=206116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=206116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=206116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}