(JTA) — U.S. President Donald Trump is pressing forward in seeking a nuclear deal with Iran following a massive wave of Israeli attacks on the country’s nuclear program.
Trump, who has built his public persona around a verve for making deals, addressed his now-weakened negotiating partner in a post on Truth Social on Friday, June 13, several hours after the Israelis began carrying out a daring and apparently successful mission in Iran that took aim at the places and personnel involved in the country’s effort to develop a nuclear weapon.
Trump said in the post he had warned Iran that not making a deal would “be much worse than anything they know, anticipated, or were told.”
He also implied that U.S. weapons had been used in the attack and that the United States would continue to supply Israel with weapons to attack Iran. Israel’s perceived need for U.S. bombs that could penetrate underground had been seen as an obstacle to an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program.
“The United States makes the best and most lethal military equipment anywhere in the World, BY FAR,” Trump said in his post, adding, “Israel has a lot of it, with much more to come – And they know how to use it.”
Trump declined to comment on whether the United States had played a role in the attack in an interview with ABC News on Friday morning. But he praised the attack and warned of more.
“I think it’s been excellent,” he said in the interview. “We gave them a chance and they didn’t take it. They got hit hard, very hard. They got hit about as hard as you’re going to get hit. And there’s more to come. A lot more.”
Trump had said when opening talks with Iran in April, in a move that was seen as against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s preferences, that if the talks failed, there would be severe reprisals. The United States would not be led into war, Trump cautioned, but would head there willingly if needed.
On Friday morning, as Israel launched another wave of attacks, Trump urged Iran to come to the negotiating table — saying in all caps in his Truth Social post that the cost of not doing so would be high.
“There has already been great death and destruction, but there is still time to make this slaughter, with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal, come to an end,” Trump wrote. “Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire. No more death, no more destruction, JUST DO IT, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.”
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, did not offer any public acquiescence on Friday. Instead, he posted a threat of his own on X: “With this crime, the Zionist regime has prepared for itself a bitter, painful fate, which it will definitely see.”
