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U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) commenced Operation Epic Fury, Feb. 28, 2026.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\nU.S. Central Command <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n“Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people,” Trump announced in a video posted to his social media account early Saturday morning.<\/p>\n
Speaking to what he called “the great, proud people of Iran,” he added, “I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand.”<\/p>\n
“When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations,” he said.<\/p>\n
“For many years, you have asked for America’s help, but you never got it. No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want, so let’s see how you respond.” he said.<\/p>\n
“America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force. Now is the time to seize control of your destiny and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach,” he said.<\/p>\n
Shortly after, in a brief phone call with a Washington Post reporter, the president said\u00a0that all he wants is “freedom for the people” of Iran.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In January, during widespread protests in Iran when\u00a0thousands of Iranians\u00a0were reported killed, Trump posted on social media, “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING — TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price.”<\/p>\n
“HELP IS ON ITS WAY,” Trump added\u00a0at the time,\u00a0though he\u00a0faced criticism for taking no further action at that point.<\/p>\n
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his own video statement\u00a0Saturday echoed\u00a0 Trump’s\u00a0call, saying the attack’s goal was\u00a0 “to remove the existential threat posed by the terrorist regime in Iran.”<\/p>\n
Iran has\u00a0claimed\u00a0it is not pursuing a nuclear weapon and has the\u00a0sovereign\u00a0right to pursue a peaceful nuclear program for civilian purposes.<\/p>\n
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President Donald Trump speaks to announce that the U.S. had begun “major combat operations” in Iran, on the day Israel and the U.S. conducted strikes on Iran, Feb. 28, 2026.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\nThe White House<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nImminent threat?<\/h2>\n Up to now, Trump\u00a0has said he\u00a0preferred a diplomatic solution\u00a0and has not\u00a0presented\u00a0a clear justification for why strikes\u00a0are needed now, since he has repeatedly insisted Iran’s nuclear program was “obliterated” in U.S. strikes he ordered last June —\u00a0a claim he repeated at\u00a0last week’s State of the Union address.<\/p>\n
In making his new case\u00a0for the strikes, the president is arguing attacks are warranted to “defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime”\u00a0without providing clear evidence of that.<\/p>\n
Trump\u00a0also\u00a0argued\u00a0Iranian missiles could “soon” reach the U.S —\u00a0 but\u00a0the president\u00a0has provided\u00a0no details.<\/p>\n
Iran is “developing long range missiles that can now threaten our very good friends and allies in Europe, our troops stationed overseas and could soon reach the American homeland,” he said.<\/p>\n
Yet, according to a one-page document released by the Defense Intelligence Agency earlier this year, Iran is looking to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile by 2035.<\/p>\n
Just a few days ago, after the president’s State of the Union address, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters Iranian missiles could reach\u00a0the United States\u00a0“one day.”<\/p>\n
“Clearly, they are headed in a pathway to one day being able to develop weapons that can reach the continental U.S. They already possess weapons that can reach much of Europe already now as we speak, and the ranges continue to grow every single year exponentially,”\u00a0Rubio said.<\/p>\n
Whether the Iranian missile threat was “imminent” — and whether Congress should\u00a0vote\u00a0on committing American troops to an extensive military operation — aimed at pursuing such a broad goal of regime change in Iran — will likely dominate the debate when lawmakers return to Washington this week.<\/p>\n
ABC News’ Mary Bruce and John Parkinson contributed to this report<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\nSource link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In announcing the U.S. military strike on Iran, President Donald Trump went significantly beyond his previous justification of destroying the country’s nuclear program. He’s now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":341614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4743,502,1674,6667,9278,965,156,19388,6668,8622,19389],"class_list":["post-341611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-ali-khamenei","tag-america","tag-congress","tag-masoud-pezeshkian","tag-on-its","tag-prime-minister","tag-social-media","tag-submit-reporter-the-president","tag-supreme-chief","tag-u-s-central-command","tag-vicious"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341611"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":341613,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341611\/revisions\/341613"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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