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President Donald Trump said that he blames Iran, not Israel, for the “damages and death” done to Gaza and Lebanon on Monday after he demanded compensation from Tehran in his latest attempt to achieve favorable terms in his negotiations with Iran.
“[W]ith respect to the Iran negotiations, Iran should be responsible for the damages and death caused to the people of Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Gaza,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Monday.
The post was an addendum to a new demand he laid out in an earlier post for Iran to give out compensation to the U.S. and others for a wide variety of different incidents that happened over the past five decades.
Trump said that he is “demanding compensation from Iran, for all of the people that they have killed and gravely wounded with their roadside bombs and many conflicts.” The post comes in response to Iranian officials saying on Saturday that they are demanding that the U.S. compensate Iran for war damage, lift its sanctions, and withdraw the military as demands for the end of the war and opening of the Strait of Hormuz.
“I have instructed my representatives to put this firmly into any, and all, future negotiations,” Trump said.
This includes, he says, the families of the 17 soldiers killed in an attack on the U.S.S. Cole in 2000, despite the U.S. blaming Al-Qaeda for the attack, and despite Sudan having agreed to pay out a settlement to the families of the victims in 2020.
Trump also says that Iran should grant compensation to the families of 52,000 protesters he claims the government has killed “in the last five months.” This statement is confusing, as Iran’s crackdown on mass protests happened in December and January, which was longer than five months ago, and because experts have said that roughly 7,000 and a maximum of 20,000 were killed.
It’s unclear if the compensation demand also includes Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen as well, or who would even receive compensation if it did.
The assertion that the destruction in Gaza and Lebanon can be blamed on Iran is absurd on its face as Israeli forces are openly occupying and razing both regions; in fact, the claim is ironic since Israel’s insistence on continuing its assault on Lebanon has been a major sticking point for the Iranian side in talks over ending the war. The U.S. military’s special operations center in Syria has faced attacks by Iran during the current war, but the U.S. has also carried out strikes on Syria and Yemen in recent years.
Regardless, Trump’s posts appear to be his latest attempts at negotiation with Iran as talks have largely stalled amid the latest round of attacks between Iran and the U.S.
In recent days, Trump has indicated that he is shifting to placing economic pressure on Iran rather than focusing on strikes, even as he has continued to threaten to carry out airstrikes. However, Trump has also said that Iran is desperate to make a deal with him since the start of the war, and has repeatedly made maximalist threats against the country. NBC recently reported that it is, in fact, Trump officials who have been unable to agree on a strategy for the war and who have been scrambling to find a pathway out.
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