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Trump at a pivotal crossroads on Iran | TheHill

posted onSeptember 17, 2019
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Article snippet: MORE is at a major crossroads as he mulls a response to attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure that could include a military strike on Iran. Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who are supported by Tehran, took credit for Saturday’s attacks. But the Trump administration is strongly suggesting Iran is to blame, raising the specter of U.S. military action in the region. “We have a lot of options, but I’m not looking at options right now. We want to find definitively who did this,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. The president said it’s “certainly looking” like Iran is responsible, while also asserting that the United States knows the “exact locations” where the attacks originated. “That was an attack on Saudi Arabia; that wasn’t an attack on us. But we would certainly help them,” Trump added. He later told reporters on the South Lawn that any lethal U.S. military strike would be proportional to an Iranian one on an oil site. His overall comments, coupled with remarks from the Saudi government on Monday, could pump the brakes on any immediate march toward military action. Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry said it was inviting United Nations experts to investigate and would decide how to act based on those findings. The mere discussion of military action is a dramatic and rapid reversal from the previous week, when Trump seemed to be softening his Iran policy and suggested a possible meeting with Iranian leadership. That all changed on Saturday. Saudi Arabia’s Khurais oil fi... Link to the full article to read more

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