The US president has vowed to attack Iran and called for the country’s leaders to be prosecuted for killing protesters.
President Donald Trump once again declared Iran “dead” and called for the country’s leaders to be tried for what he called “war crimes against humanity.”
President Trump also promised on Monday to respond to recent Iranian attacks on U.S. military bases in Jordan.
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The US president’s outburst came as the US and Israel’s war against Iran enters its seventh month, with renewed conflict and no end in sight.
“Iran is officially a failed state,” President Trump wrote in a social media post. “They’re dead! They don’t have a navy, they don’t have an air force, they don’t have a currency, they don’t pay their soldiers or police, inflation is at 300%, their leadership is in complete disarray and they can’t properly represent the country.”
President Trump has repeatedly asserted since the early days of the conflict that Iran’s system of governance was collapsing. However, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has spearheaded the war effort, and the regime has survived without major defections.
Fighting resumed in the region on Sunday after the US military attacked Iran’s Larak Island, allegedly targeting a launch pad preparing to launch mine-laden rockets in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran quickly retaliated, firing missiles at U.S. military bases in Jordan, demonstrating its ability and willingness to strike back if attacked.
President Trump vowed on Monday to meet Iran’s response, but the move risks prolonging the conflict.
“We’re going to hit them hard,” the US president told Fox News. “I’m sure you’ll get an answer.”
The flare-up was the first fighting between the two countries since July.
The Trump administration has said it is shifting its tactics from military operations to economic pressure.
But recent skirmishes have shown that the risk of fighting remains high without a deal to permanently end the war.
President Trump suggested on Monday that Iran’s crackdown on anti-government protesters was preventing the regime from collapsing.
“The only thing they have is fake news from the US, a willingness to kill protesters (over 100,000 dead now. They must be tried for war crimes against humanity!), and the fine line ‘Bull****,'” the US president wrote.
The death toll among protesters is said to be 100,000, which President Trump has cited as a new record. The US president previously accused Iran of killing up to 60,000 people in demonstrations earlier this year.
It’s not clear how the US president decided on the new number.
Iranian authorities put the death toll at 3,117, including members of the security forces, and blame the deaths on Israeli-backed “insurgents.”
President Trump also appears to have combined war crimes, or violations of the laws of war, with crimes against humanity, or systematic abuses of civilians.
Separately, President Trump imposed sanctions on International Criminal Court officials who issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on war crimes charges in Gaza.
Iran also accuses the United States of committing war crimes and targeting civilians during the war. On the first day of the conflict, an attack on a girls’ school in Minab, southern Iran, killed 168 people, mostly children.
