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US Does Not Expect to Be Drawn into War but Predicts Attack by Iran against Israel

Iranians burn an Israeli flag during a rally marking Quds Day and the funeral of members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps who were killed in a suspected Israeli airstrike on the Iranian embassy complex in the Syrian capital Damascus, in Tehran, Iran, April 5, 2024. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters
Iranians burn an Israeli flag during a rally marking Quds Day and the funeral of members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps who were killed in a suspected Israeli airstrike on the Iranian embassy complex in the Syrian capital Damascus, in Tehran, Iran, April 5, 2024. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters
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US Does Not Expect to Be Drawn into War but Predicts Attack by Iran against Israel

Iranians burn an Israeli flag during a rally marking Quds Day and the funeral of members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps who were killed in a suspected Israeli airstrike on the Iranian embassy complex in the Syrian capital Damascus, in Tehran, Iran, April 5, 2024. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters
Iranians burn an Israeli flag during a rally marking Quds Day and the funeral of members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps who were killed in a suspected Israeli airstrike on the Iranian embassy complex in the Syrian capital Damascus, in Tehran, Iran, April 5, 2024. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters

The United States expects an attack by Iran against Israel but one that would not be big enough to draw Washington into war, a US official said late on Thursday.

The White House said earlier Washington did not want conflict to spread in the Middle East and the US had told Iran it was not involved in an air strike against a top Iranian military commander in Damascus.

The White House added it warned Iran to not use that attack as a pretext to escalate further in the region.

Suspected Israeli warplanes bombed Iran's embassy in Damascus on Monday in a strike for which Iran has vowed revenge and in which a top Iranian general and six other Iranian military officers were killed, ratcheting up tension in a region already strained by the Gaza war.

Iranian sources told Reuters Tehran has signaled to Washington that it will respond to Israel's attack on its Syrian embassy in a way that aims to avoid major escalation and it will not act hastily, as Tehran presses demands including a Gaza truce.

The United States has been on high alert about possible retaliatory strikes from Iran and US envoys have been working to lower tensions.

Palestinian group Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200, according to Israeli tallies. Israel's military assault on Hamas-governed Gaza has since killed over 33,000 according to the local health ministry, displaced nearly all of Gaza's 2.3 million population, caused a humanitarian crisis and led to genocide allegations that Israeli denies.

Iran-backed groups have declared support for Palestinians, waging attacks from Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq. Tehran has avoided direct confrontation with Israel or the United States, while declaring support for its allies.

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Iran Says Could Abandon Nuclear Weapons But Has Conditions

A sample of the surveillance cameras that monitor the Iranian nuclear facilities presented at a press conference in Vienna. (Reuters)
A sample of the surveillance cameras that monitor the Iranian nuclear facilities presented at a press conference in Vienna. (Reuters)
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Iran Says Could Abandon Nuclear Weapons But Has Conditions

A sample of the surveillance cameras that monitor the Iranian nuclear facilities presented at a press conference in Vienna. (Reuters)
A sample of the surveillance cameras that monitor the Iranian nuclear facilities presented at a press conference in Vienna. (Reuters)

Iran on Saturday hinted it would be willing to negotiate on a nuclear agreement with the upcoming administration of US President-elect Donald Trump, but that it has conditions.
Last Thursday, the UN atomic watchdog's 35-nation Board of Governors passed a resolution ordering Iran to urgently improve cooperation with the agency and requesting a “comprehensive” report aimed at pressuring Iran into fresh nuclear talks.
Ali Larijani, advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said Iran and the US are now in a new position concerning the nuclear file.
In a post on X, he said, “If the current US administration say they are only against Iran’s nuclear weapons, they must accept Iran’s conditions and provide compensation for the damages caused.”

He added, “The US should accept the necessary conditions... so that a new agreement can be reached.”
Larijani stated that Washington withdrew from the JCPOA, thus causing damage to Iran, adding that his country started increasing its production of 60% enriched uranium.
The Iran nuclear accord, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was reached to limit the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
The deal began unraveling in 2018, when Washington, under Trump’s first administration, unilaterally withdrew from the accord and re-imposed a sanction regime of “maximum pressure” on Tehran.
In retaliation, Iran has rapidly ramped up its nuclear activities, including by increasing its stockpiles of enriched uranium to 60% — close to the 90% threshold required to develop a nuclear bomb.
It also began gradually rolling back some of its commitments by increasing its uranium stockpiles and enriching beyond the 3.67% purity -- enough for nuclear power stations -- permitted under the deal.
Since 2021, Tehran has significantly decreased its cooperation with the IAEA by deactivating surveillance devices to monitor the nuclear program and barring UN inspectors.
Most recently, Iran escalated its confrontations with the Agency by announcing it would launch a series of “new and advanced” centrifuges. Its move came in response to a resolution adopted by the United Nations nuclear watchdog that censures Tehran for what the agency called lack of cooperation.
Centrifuges are the machines that enrich uranium transformed into gas by rotating it at very high speed, increasing the proportion of fissile isotope material (U-235).
Shortly after the IAEA passed its resolution last Thursday, Tehran spoke about the “dual role” of IAEA’s chief, Raphael Grossi.
Chairman of the Iranian Parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Ebrahim Azizi said, “The statements made by Grossi in Tehran do not match his actions in Vienna.”
And contrary to the statements of Azizi, who denied his country’s plans to build nuclear weapons, Tehran did not originally want to freeze its uranium stockpile enriched to 60%
According to the IAEA’s definition, around 42 kg of uranium enriched to 60% is the amount at which creating one atomic weapon is theoretically possible. The 60% purity is just a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.
Spokesperson and deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Behrouz Kamalvandi, said on Friday that IAEA inspectors were scheduled to come immediately after the meeting of the Board of Governors to evaluate Iran’s capacity, “with those capacities remaining for a month without any interruption in enrichment at 60% purity.”
Iran’s news agency, Tasnim, quoted Kamalvandi as saying that “the pressures resulting from the IAEA resolution are counterproductive, meaning that they increase our ability to enrich.”
He added: “Currently, not only have we not stopped enrichment, but we have orders to increase the speed, and we are gradually working on that."