The comments fueled questions over whether Washington will join Israel’s attacks after insisting it had no hand in the campaign.
Days after a senior US official said Trump had told Israel to back down from plans to assassinate top leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the US president appeared to reverse course.
“We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.
Warning Iran against targeting US interests, he also posted, “But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin,” he added, later posting a message saying: “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”
Trump and his National Security Council met on Tuesday to discuss the conflict, ending after an hour and 20 minutes with no immediate public statement.
RTHK’s Washington correspondent, Simon Marks, said Trump’s latest remarks should be taken seriously.
“Donald Trump is on a journey, clearly, from a position where he wanted to suggest to the rest of the world that the United States was uninvolved, to a situation where now he is reportedly poised to become absolutely mired in this military operation by supplying the Israelis with the go-ahead to use those American bunker-busting bombs on Iran’s nuclear facilities,” he told RTHK’s Hong Kong Today programme.
“And while it is evident that Donald Trump has largely extemporised on this issue over the last five or six days, he now puts himself in a position where he’s trying to portray himself as the central figure in all of this.”
Marks added there was was a split among Trump’s supporters on whether the US should get involved.
“Donald Trump is very much indicating through all of his actions that he sides with the former group, the group that believes there is a vital national security interest here for the United States and that it needs completely to eradicate any prospect of Iran developing a nuclear capability.” (Additional reporting by AFP)
