After a thwarted assassination attempt on his life, President-elect Donald Trump is allegedly setting the stage for a tougher U.S. stance on Iran, with plans to impose severe sanctions on the country.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Trump’s strategy involves “drastically increasing sanctions” on Iran, aiming to severely damage its oil industry. This move is part of a broader attempt to undermine Tehran’s backing of violent proxies in the Middle East and its nuclear ambitions.
Trump is reportedly keen on cutting off Iran’s oil revenues by targeting “foreign ports and traders who handle Iranian oil.”
The “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran is also influenced by apparent assassination attempts on Trump and his top officials from his first administration.
“People tend to take that stuff personally,” said Mick Mulroy, a former senior Pentagon official. “If he’s going to be hawkish on any particular country, designated major adversaries, it’s Iran.”
Recently, prosecutors revealed charges against Farhad Shakeri, an Iranian national, for crimes including attempted murder-for-hire and supporting a foreign terrorist organization.
Shakeri allegedly recruited two individuals to kill an Iranian dissident and two Jewish Americans. However, with elections nearing, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) redirected Shakeri to focus on killing Trump listed as “Victim-4” in the indictment.
“SHAKERI indicated to IRGC Official-1 that this would cost a ‘huge’ amount of money,” the indictment claims. “In response, IRGC Official-1 said that ‘we have already spent a lot of money [s]o the money’s not an issue,’ which SHAKERI understood to mean that the IRGC previously had spent a significant sum of money on efforts to murder Victim-4 and was willing to continue spending a lot of money in its attempt to procure Victim-4’s assassination.”
In a recent meeting with IRGC, Shakeri was ordered to prepare an assassination plan for Trump within a week. If unable, Iran planned to wait, believing Trump’s potential election loss would simplify the assassination later.
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