Trump Tweetstorm Threatens to Wipe Out 52 Sites "Important to Iran & the Iranian Culture" If Tehran Retaliates

By Elias Marat

U.S. President Donald Trump has issued an ominous threat to launch a major military assault on “very important” targets related to Iran in the latest sign of a looming military conflict unleashed by the shocking U.S. assassination of a top Iranian military commander.

On Saturday, Trump upped the stakes of any potential retaliation by Tehran for the drone strike by serving notice that the Pentagon had identified 52 sites important to Iran and its culture that would be wiped out “VERY FAST AND VERY HARD” if the Iranians avenge the killing of Major Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

Tweeting from Mar-a-Lago after a day of golf, Trump wrote:

Iran is talking very boldly about targeting certain USA assets as revenge for our ridding the world of their terrorist leader who had just killed an American, & badly wounded many others, not to mention all of the people he had killed over his lifetime, including recently….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2020

….targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2020

The bellicose warning comes as Tehran continues to signal an impending military response to the killing of its top general.

Also Saturday, Reuters reported that General Gholamali Abuhamzeh, a senior IRGC commander in the southern province of Kerman, warned that the Islamic Republic reserves the right to avenge Soleimani’s death. In comments first reported by Iranian state media outlet Tasnim, the general added that vital U.S. targets in the region had been identified a “long time ago.” He said:

The Strait of Hormuz is a vital point for the West and a large number of American destroyers and warships cross there … vital American targets in the region have been identified by Iran since long time ago … some 35 U.S. targets in the region as well as Tel Aviv are within our reach.

Gholamali Abuhamzeh, who commands the Islamic Revolutionary Guard said Friday that they already have 35 potential targets identified for a counter-strike against the US.
Said among the targets are American ships in the Strait of Hormuz, Sea of Oman, and the Persian Gulf pic.twitter.com/SfhhKk9qe6

— Graphenes (@Graphenes1) January 4, 2020

The warning came as Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif posted a tweet calling U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “an arrogant clown masquerading as a diplomat” after he claimed that the people of Iraq were dancing in the streets over the U.S. killing of Soleimani, a top Iraqi militia leader and others tied to local militias.

The Iranian top diplomat said that the Iraqis had taken to the streets in the tens of thousands to mourn the Iranian general’s death, proving Pompeo wrong. Zarif wrote:

24 hrs ago, an arrogant clown— masquerading as a diplomat— claimed people were dancing in the cities of Iraq.

Today, hundreds of thousands of our proud Iraqi brothers and sisters offered him their response across their soil.

End of US malign presence in West Asia has begun. pic.twitter.com/eTDRyLN11c

— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) January 4, 2020

Continuing, the Iranian foreign minister said that the killing of Soleimani had set in motion the process of the U.S. being expelled from the Middle East. He wrote: