US President, Donald Trump, in his first public comments on the Israeli strike against Iran, blamed Tehran for the escalation and warned that continued defiance could bring total devastation.
Trump said Iran brought the destruction on itself by rejecting a nuclear proposal he and his envoy, Steve Witkoff, offered about two weeks ago.
The proposed deal would have required Iran to give up all uranium enrichment activities.
“I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Friday morning. “I told them, in the strongest of words, to ‘just do it,’ but no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they got, they just couldn’t get it done.”
The negotiations had lasted only two months. In recent weeks, Trump had reportedly urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to delay any attack to allow diplomacy more time.
On Thursday, as Israel prepared to launch its strikes, Trump told reporters, “I don’t want them going in” because “I think it would blow it” with the talks. He quickly added, “It might help actually, but it could also blow it.”
Trump suggested that some hardline Iranian officials who opposed a deal were among those killed in the Israeli assault.
“Certain Iranian hardliners spoke bravely, but they didn’t know what was about to happen. They are all DEAD now, and it will only get worse!” he said.
Trump withdrew the U.S. from the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement during his first term, calling it “one-sided” and a “disaster.” That deal had allowed Iran to enrich uranium at low levels for civilian purposes, a position Trump’s own administration reportedly reconsidered just two months ago.
Talks between U.S. and Iranian negotiators were scheduled to resume Sunday in Oman. However, following Friday morning’s Israeli strikes, Iran announced on state television that it would no longer participate in the talks, at least for now.
In his social media post, Trump appeared to pressure Iran to return to negotiations.
“The next already planned attacks,” he wrote, “would be even more brutal.”
He warned, “Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire.”
He ended with a familiar call to action: “JUST DO IT, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.”
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