Trump Threatens to “Wipe Iran Off the Map” as U.S. Moves Warships to Region
In a sharply worded analysis for Workers World, American socialist writer and activist Sara Flounders outlines how U.S. President Donald Trump has escalated tensions with Iran, warning that Tehran could be “wiped off the map” as the United States moves warships into the region.
On Jan. 20 US President Donald Trump threatened to “wipe Iran off the face of the earth.” Iran is a country of 90 million people. He is moving a new U.S. armada off the coast of Iran, to back up his latest threats. A year ago, on February 4, again to great publicity, Trump made a similar wild threat against Iran, The Caspian Post reports via Workers World.
This time the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and several guided-missile destroyers are due to arrive back in the region. Additional air defense systems are being deployed around U.S. and Israeli airbases. Britain announced it would send RAF Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4 jets to Qatar.
Iran has said that they will treat any attack “as an all-out war against us, and we will respond in the hardest way possible.” Trump claims Iran is threatening him personally by stating it will defend itself from attack.
Three weeks ago U.S. imperialism hoped they could topple Iran with currency manipulations due to U.S. sanctions and with 50,000 StarLink internet receivers beaming instructions to agents along with beaming non-stop images of chaos, fires and deaths for the Iranian people. They arrogantly assumed that U.S. technology couldn’t be challenged. But Iran has developed the capability to shut down Starlink communication by jamming equipment to disrupt Elon Musk’s 11,000 low orbit satellite signals. The regime change operation fizzled overnight.
Scott Bessent, the U.S. treasury secretary, took credit while at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, for the protests in Iran, saying U.S. sanctions had led to the unrest and that maximum economic sanctions “worked because in December, their economy collapsed. … We saw a major bank go under. … There is a dollar shortage. They are not able to get imports, and this is why the people took to the streets. This is economic statecraft. … Things are moving in a very positive way here.”
This month Trump asserted on his Truth Social platform that he was “locked and loaded” to attack Iran.
A desperate message from Netanyahu and from the royalist collaborators in the Gulf states urged a U.S. pullback. They felt that they could not survive the Iranian response. The Times of Israel pointedly reminded the war planners that Israel had seriously depleted its THAAD interceptor stockpiles in the 12 day June attacks on Iran and there were long production timelines.
Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi, who heads Iran’s Khatam-al Anbiya Central Headquarters, which coordinates the army and the Revolutionary Guard, warned the U.S. on Jan. 22 that any military strike on Iran would turn all U.S. bases in the region into “legitimate targets.”
Iran’s Advanced Defense System
The U.S. has 40,000 to 50,000 troops stationed in the region and tens of thousands of contractors and mercenaries in a broad network of 19 military bases. Iran has been their primary target since the 1979 Iranian Revolution dared to take control of its oil and gas resources.
In order to defend itself, Iran has built a highly developed and scientifically advanced military apparatus and now has a highly educated working class.
Iran has developed 2,000 km range, advanced, maneuverable hypersonic missiles, designed to evade advanced air defenses with moveable nozzles to shift trajectories. These missiles, as they demonstrated in the Israeli / U.S. bombing of Iran in June, are capable of breaking through Israel’s supposedly impenetrable Iron Dome and hit militarily sensitive Israeli targets and U.S. bases in the region. These missiles are mounted on mobile launchers and difficult to intercept.
It is doubtful whether the U.S. has developed adequate protection from Iran’s defensive missiles in the past three weeks. It is unclear if Trump is attempting to project military strength or just break the news cycle ridiculing the debacle of his reckless tariff threats and rash military statements at the annual World Economic Forum.
What is clear is that both the Islamic Republic of Iran and the world movement must take these reckless new threats seriously and be prepared to defend Iran.