WASHINGTON, October 15. /TASS/. US President Donald Trump has claimed that Iran has forced him to promise not to kill its leaders anymore.
"Their leaders are gone. That's one of the problems. I might have gone too far. I don't know who the hell to deal with. Their first level leaders are gone. They picked the second level. Their second level leaders are gone. They picked the third level. Half of them are gone. They made me promise not to take out anymore, and I did. I promised them. But nobody wants to be the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. <…> Who would like to be the president of Iran? Please raise your hand," he said at a campaign rally in Arizona.
He once again said that if Tehran had nuclear weapons, it would use it against the United States’ western part. "We had to make sure that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon because you know they are considered for many years the number one state sponsor of terror. And if they had a nuclear weapon, within 24 hours they would use it. They'll knock out the Middle East. Then they'll start hitting us on the West Coast. They'll hit Europe because they're crazy. They're crazy people," he said.
The United States and Israel launched a war against Iran on February 28. In June, Washington and Tehran signed a memorandum of understanding envisaging an immediate ceasefire on all fronts, including in Lebanon. However, the United States resumed large-scale attacks on Iran overnight to July 8, having accused it of breaching the existing agreements in what concerned the Strait of Hormuz, a global chokepoint for approximately 25% of oil and some 20% of LNG supplies.
Later, the US administration actually signaled that it was ceasing the use of military force against Iran and was embarking on a path of its economic suffocation through tougher sanctions.