Donald Trump has walked back his previous push for regime change in Iran, admitting it would cause “chaos” to an already fragile conflict.
As tensions continue to simmer over the risk of retaliation against the US, the president also suggested that his predecessor, Joe Biden, was to blame for Iranian sleeper cells entering America.
“There was gross incompetence, and among everything else, he let a lot of super (sleeper) cells in, many from Iran. But hopefully we’ll take care of them,” Trump claimed on Tuesday.
The comments came as Trump travelled to the Netherlands for a NATO summit, hours after brokering what he insisted would be a lasting ceasefire between Israel and Iran.
But despite musing over the weekend about a potential regime change in Iran, contradicting assurances from his top Cabinet members that toppling the Islamic Republic was not the administration’s goal, Trump on Tuesday told reporters: “I don’t want it. I’d like to see everything calm down as quickly as possible.”
“Regime change takes chaos, and ideally, we don’t want to see so much chaos. So we’ll see how it goes,” he added.
He also told reporters that he had spoken by phone to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, demanding that he bring back military aircraft and not continue to bomb Iran.
After speaking to Netanyahu, he then posted a message on his social media network insisting that Israel would comply with his request.
“All planes will turn around and head home, while doing a friendly ‘Plane Wave’ to Iran. Nobody will be hurt, the Ceasefire is in effect! Thank you for your attention to this matter!” he said.
Trump’s NATO trip comes after a stunning few days in the Middle East conflict, which began on Saturday when America launched B-2s to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, and culminated on Monday evening when Trump declared a ceasefire had been reached between Israel and Iran.
But things quickly took a turn when it appeared that both sides had violated the agreement, prompting an expletive-laden tirade from Trump as he left the White House en route to the Netherlands.
“They don’t know what the f---- they’re doing,” he said.
It is also still not clear how much highly enriched uranium Iran was able to move to a secret location before the U.S. was able to bomb its three known nuclear facilities.
This has prompted fears that the regime could still have the capacity to build a nuclear bomb in the future, even though the weekend strikes severely damaged its enrichment program.
“Tehran had ample time prior to the strikes to remove its stockpile of near-weapons-grade uranium to a covert location, and it’s likely that they did so,” said Kelsey Davenport, the director of non-proliferation policy at the Arms Control Association.
“The containers that this material is stored in are small canisters, something on the size of a scuba tank, for reference, so they’re quite easy to conceal and difficult to track. So it’s not surprising that the United States has even admitted that it does not know where all of the material is.”
Trump, however, insisted that having a nuclear weapon was “the last thing” on Iran’s mind now.
“They’re going to get on to being a great trading nation,” said. “They have a lot of oil and they’re going to do well, but they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon.”
Meanwhile, in the U.S., the conflict has once again sparked concern about sleeper cells–groups of terrorists who are already in the country but operating under the radar, waiting to be activated.
While authorities say there is no credible evidence of a sleeper cell, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection warned in a memo to be vigilant as the threat of a sleeper cell or sympathizer acting at the behest of Iran had “never been higher.”
Asked about the issue aboard Air Force One, Trump blamed his predecessor.
“He had no idea what he was doing,” the president said of Biden.
