Trump urges Iranians to rise up: ‘Now is the time to seize control of your destiny’

U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday directly called on the Iranian people to overthrow their government once the strikes carried out by U.S. And Israeli troops against Iran have concluded. It was an explicit call for regime change — something that had been carefully avoided in the weeks of preparations and negotiations leading up to this joint attack. The appeal has also been repeated by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and by the son of Iran’s last Shah, Reza Pahlavi.

In Trump’s address, which he also posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, the U.S. President confirmed the start of “major combat operations in Iran” and stated that the goal is “to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime.”

Trump also issued a direct call to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the armed forces, and the police to lay down their arms. If they do, they will receive immunity; if not, they will “face certain death.”

The main message, however, was a call for the Iranian people to rise up. During the bombings, Trump advised them to take shelter, but once the operation — expected to be longer and more intense than the U.S. Strikes in June — concludes, they should rebel.

“The hour of your freedom is at hand,” he declared. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be, probably, your only chance for generations.”

The president, appearing in a gray cap emblazoned with “USA” and standing before a row of U.S. Flags, did not shy away from giving himself credit: “For many years, you have asked for America’s help, but you never got it. No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want, so let’s see how you respond.”

“America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force. Now is the time to seize control of your destiny and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach,” he continued. “This is the moment for action. Do not let it pass.”

A few minutes later, in the same vein, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “Our joint action will create the conditions for the courageous Iranian people to take their destiny into their own hands.” “Help has arrived,” he said in English — in the middle of a speech in Hebrew — echoing the message that Trump addressed to demonstrators in Iran in January during the repression.

The strike, for which the number of casualties is not yet known, comes while Tehran and Washington were still in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, and nine months after a U.S. Bombing of Iran’s main nuclear facilities that, according to Trump, “obliterated” the regime’s atomic program.

“We sought repeatedly to make a deal [...] But Iran refused, just as it has for decades and decades, they rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can’t take it anymore,” said Trump, justifying the new attack, which comes after weeks of U.S. Military buildup in the region, the largest since the 2003 Iraq invasion.

Speaking from his private residence, Mar-a-Lago, where he planned to spend the weekend, the U.S. President made clear that this operation is far more substantial than the one carried out last June, when U.S. Forces struck Iran’s nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan.

According to Trump, since then, Iran “attempted to rebuild their nuclear program and to continue developing long-range missiles that can now threaten our very good friends and allies in Europe, our troops stationed overseas, and could soon reach the American homeland.”

“We are going to destroy their missiles and raise their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally, again, obliterated. We’re going to annihilate their navy. We’re going to ensure that the region’s terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world,” the Republican said.

Trump acknowledged, as he described the ambitious ongoing operation, the possibility that U.S. Forces may suffer casualties. That is something that had not occurred in previous U.S. Military interventions in Iran or in Venezuela on January 3 to capture president Nicolás Maduro.

In a similar vein to Trump, Reza Pahlavi, the son of the Shah deposed in 1979 by the Islamic Revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini, welcomed the military operation — which he described as a “humanitarian intervention” — and called on Iranian forces to rise up against the current supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“The assistance that the president of the United States had promised to the brave people of Iran has now arrived. This is a humanitarian intervention, and its target is the Islamic Republic, its apparatus of repression, and its machinery of killing — not the country and great nation of Iran,” the former Shah’s son said in his statement.

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