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Iranian official rhetoric girds for war as US fleet nears

Behrouz Turani 

Iran International: Tehran’s increasingly combative official statements suggest its leaders may be taking US military deployments more seriously than Washington’s signals of diplomacy.

The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, along with several destroyers and warplanes, is set to arrive in the Middle East in the coming days, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing two US officials.

“We have a big force going toward Iran,” US President Donald Trump said on Thursday. “I’d rather not see anything happen, but we will see. We are watching them very closely. We have an armada, we have a massive fleet heading in that direction, and maybe we won’t have to use it.”

The strike group has been en route from the Asia-Pacific region even as Trump has spoken publicly about talks following Iran’s violent crackdown on protests, which has left thousands dead.

The tone from parts of Iran’s military establishment has been notably defiant—and at times confident—prompting questions about whether some in Tehran see war as politically useful, a major event that could overshadow the mass killing of protesters.

“We are preparing for a fateful war with Israel. We possess weapons no one else has,” said Yahya Rahim Safavi, a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a senior adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

“The next war will end this conflict once and for all.”

Another senior commander, Ali Abdollahi, warned that any attack on Iran’s territory or interests would turn US interests, bases, and centers of influence into “legitimate and accessible targets.”

Revolutionary Guards Commander Mohammad Pakpour wrapped it up: Iran was prepared for any possibility, he said, “including an all-out war.”

Diplomatic messaging from Tehran has been more restrained but no less accusatory.

On Thursday, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi again accused the United States of instigating unrest inside Iran. An all-out confrontation, he wrote, would be “messy, ferocious and far longer” than Israel or its allies anticipate.

Araghchi’s tone contrasted with Trump’s remarks earlier in the week, in which he said he had pulled back from a strike after Iran reportedly halted plans to execute hundreds of detainees.

“Iran does want to talk, and we’ll talk,” the US president said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Hours later, aboard Air Force One, Trump reminded reporters that military action remained an option.

As ever, Trump appeared to be keeping his options open. In Tehran, however—perhaps mindful that Israeli strikes last June came amid US-Iran talks—officials appear to have drawn their own conclusions.