Trump warns more US deaths ‘likely’ in Iran war

Protesters in the Philippines burn picture of U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — Protesters in the Philippines burn picture of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

(Image credit: Ted Aljibe / AFP via Getty Images)

What happened

The war on Iran that the U.S. and Israel launched early Saturday had spread into a regional conflagration by this morning, with Israel also bombing Lebanon while Iran sends missiles into neighboring Arab nations as well as Israel. America’s European allies said they would not join the war but would aid in defending their Mideast bases and other interests under attack from Tehran.

U.S.-Israeli airstrikes killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior military and political leaders. Three U.S. service members were killed and five others were seriously injured in “Operation Epic Fury,” the Pentagon said. “And sadly, there will likely be more before it ends,” President Donald Trump said in a video on social media. The Iranian Red Crescent Society said this morning that the U.S.-Israeli strikes had killed at least 555 people in Iran, including 115 at a girls’ elementary school near a naval base.

Trump is “publicly bracing” the U.S. for an “open-ended war with a rising human cost,” Axios said. He told The New York Times the U.S. planned to keep up its attack on Iran for “four or five weeks.” But his administration “has yet to explain to the public or to Congress what Iranian threat prompted the massive attacks” that “could draw the U.S. into another Middle East war,” Politico said. A Reuters/Ipsos poll Sunday found that 27% of Americans approved of the strikes on Iran, 43% disapproved and the remainder were unsure.

Pentagon briefers Sunday “acknowledged to congressional staff” that “Iran was not planning to strike U.S. forces or bases in the Middle East unless Israel attacked Iran first,” CNN said, “undercutting” the White House’s initial rationale. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) told CNN that Trump had “started a war of choice.” Longtime Trump backer Tucker Carlson told ABC News the war was “absolutely disgusting and evil.”

Trump told The Atlantic Sunday that Iran’s new leadership “want to talk, and I have agreed to talk.” But Iran’s top national security official, Ali Larijani, called that “wishful thinking,” saying on social media that the country’s interim governing council “will not negotiate with the United States.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine will brief reporters on the war this morning. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal said, “oil prices were sharply higher and U.S. stock futures pointed to sizable losses on Wall Street as investors brace for the economic fallout of an extended regional war.”

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