Iran defies Trump's Strait of Hormuz ultimatum with threats of its own

The head of the U.S. military's Central Command says Iran is "operating in a sign of desperation" by targeting civilian sites in the war.

In an interview with the Farsi-language Iranian opposition satellite network Iran International that aired early Monday, U.S. Navy Adm. Brad Cooper said: "They're operating in a sign of desperation. ... In the last couple of weeks, they've attacked civilian targets very deliberately, more than 300 times."

Cooper noted a slowdown in Iranian incoming fire across the Mideast as the war entered its fourth week.

"At the beginning of the conflict, you saw large volumes, in the dozens of drones and missiles," Cooper said. "You no longer see that. It's all one or two at a time."

Cooper said the U.S. campaign against Iran was continuing "ahead or on plan," targeting missile and drone manufacturing sites as well other military infrastructure.

"So it's not just about the threat today. We're eliminating the threat of the future, both in terms of the drones, the missiles, as well as the navy," he told Iran International.

Cooper said it wasn't yet time for the Iranian public to come to the streets, citing the ongoing risks from the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes.

"They're launching missiles and drones from populated areas and you need to stay inside for right now," Cooper said. 

Both the Israeli and U.S. governments have voiced hope that the Iranian public will rise up and topple the country's nearly-half-century-old ruling Islamic theocracy, and Cooper said "there will be a clear signal at some point, as the president has indicated, for you to be able to come out."

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After Iran threatened power plants across the Mideast, Iranian news outlets published a list of such facilities, including the United Arab Emirates' nuclear power plant. The report by the semiofficial Fars news agency, close to its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, appeared to be an indirect threat to the sites, including desalination plants in the Middle East.

The list also included the UAE's Barakah nuclear power plant, which has four reactors out in the western deserts of the country near its border with Saudi Arabia.

The judiciary's Mizan news agency also published the list.

The threat by Tehran puts at risk both electrical supplies and water in the Gulf Arab states, particularly as the desert nations commingle their power stations with desalination plants crucial for supplying drinking water.

It was Iran's response to President Trump's 48-hour deadline for the Islamic Republic to allow ships to freely transit the Strait of Hormuz, which expires just before 8 p.m. Eastern on Monday. 

In an earlier statement conveyed by state media, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced Monday a "decision that if the power plants are attacked, Iran will retaliate by targeting the power plants of the occupying regime and the power plants of regional countries that supply electricity to U.S. bases, as well as the economic, industrial and energy infrastructures in which Americans have shares."

"Do not doubt that we will do this," the statement added

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Earlier this week, President Trump said NATO is a "paper tiger without the U.S.," but NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said Sunday that he had "several conversations this week with the president."

"The good news is that, look, we had the U.S. for weeks planning for [Operation] Epic Fury and for reasons of security and safety, they could not share with European allies and allies around the world and partner countries what they were doing, because that would have jeopardized the effect of the first attack," Rutte said Sunday on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan."

Rutte said it was "only logical" that 22 nations — many of which are in NATO — needed some time to "come together." He said he has been in phone calls this week with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, which helped lead "22 countries now signing up to this initiative."

"Obviously, I cannot in a program which is aired around the world, and you have a lot of viewers, discuss with you what is discussed in secrecy, but I can assure you that, of course, and the U.K. is at the forefront of leading this effort of the 22 countries on the leadership of Prime Minister Starmer," Rutte said.

Watch Margaret Brennan's full interview with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte here.

Iranian strikes hit two communities near Israel's main nuclear research center on Saturday night, wounding nearly 200 people in the country's south. It was the first time Israel's nuclear research center had been targeted during the war launched by the U.S. and Israel three weeks earlier. 

The strikes came hours after Iran's Natanz nuclear enrichment facility was hit in an airstrike, for which Israel's military denied responsibility.  

The Israeli military said it was unable to intercept the Iranian missiles that hit the cities of Dimona and Arad on Saturday night, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the fact that no one was killed was "due to luck."

"If you want proof that Iran endangers the entire world, the last 48 hours have given it," Netanyahu told reporters at the site of the Arad strike. "In the last 48 hours, Iran targeted a civilian area. They're doing that as a mass murder weapon. Luckily, no one was killed, but that's due to luck, not their intention. Their intention is to murder civilians."

Netanyahu called on world leaders to join Israel and the United States in their war against Iran, saying he "can see some of them beginning to move in that direction but more is needed." He said Israel and the U.S. were responding to Iran "with great force, but not on civilians."

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When gauging a war, Americans consider at least two important things: what the goals are overseas and its impact back home.

Right now, Americans want a lot of things to happen in Iran: Most feel it's important to stop its nuclear program, ensure the Iranian people are free, and, now that the conflict is underway, that it would be unacceptable to leave the Iranian regime in power at the end of it. 

But it's also important to end the conflict as fast as possible, they say, with growing economic pressure back home. 

Rising gas prices are fueling some pessimism about the U.S. economy more broadly, with concerns about negative impacts on it in at least the near-term, if not the long term.

That uncertainty is underpinned by a rising number of people who feel the Trump administration hasn't explained things. Most call it a war of choice, not of necessity.

In all, most Americans feel the conflict isn't going well right now, though it gets continued support from most of the president's Republican base, in part because they express a lot of confidence in him personally.

Read more here.

Iran's launch on Friday of two intermediate-range ballistic missiles at the joint U.S.-U.K. military base on the remote Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia – more than 2,000 miles from Iran - has raised serious questions about both the reach and supply of its longer range missiles.

While the attack was unsuccessful, Iran had claimed previously that it wasn't even working to develop missiles with a range greater than about 1,200 hundred miles, or what is typically called medium range.

The longer-range missiles used Friday could potentially put some European capitals, and more U.S. military bases, at risk. 

U.K. officials did not give details on the unsuccessful Iranian strike, with the Ministry of Defense in London saying only that Iran was "lashing out across the region."

"These missiles are not intended to strike Israel. Their range extends to the capitals of Europe — Berlin, Paris, and Rome are all within direct threat range," Israeli Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said Saturday night.

"They are putting everyone in their sights," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, adding a call for other countries to heed "President Trump's call to have the international community confront this terrorist, fanatic regime of zealots." 

Netanyahu said the war was not only for the "security of America and the security of Israel, it's for the security of the entire world, and it's time for them [other countries] to act."

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