In the U.S. military, commanders do not typically speak publicly about future operations to avoid tipping off an adversary or jeopardizing the mission\u2019s success and, possibly, American lives.<\/p>\n
But that has not dissuaded America\u2019s commander in chief from proclaiming when and how the United States will next attack Iran.<\/p>\n
For the second day in a row, President Trump on Thursday threatened in a social media post that the United States would hit Iran \u201cVERY HARD TONIGHT,\u201d and may soon take Kharg Island, the heart of Iran\u2019s oil economy.<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump said the same thing on Wednesday, and hours later American warplanes and Tomahawk missiles struck dozens of Iranian radars, air defenses and other military targets in the Strait of Hormuz and elsewhere around the country.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has criticized reporters for asking about future operations, suddenly decided it was OK to forecast U.S. bombing raids.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo those strikes that will happen tonight will be strong. They will be clear,\u201d Mr. Hegseth told reporters traveling with him to the headquarters of U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla., which oversees military operations in the Middle East. \u201cIf they happen to happen tomorrow night, they will be strong, and they will be clear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump and Mr. Hegseth said they were telegraphing the American strikes \u2014 just a day after two Army aviators were plucked from the ocean by a sea drone after Iran downed their Apache helicopter gunship \u2014 to pressure the government in Tehran to reach a deal to open the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively blocked for months.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Trump is a deal-maker, the best in the world,\u201d Mr. Hegseth said. \u201cHe\u2019s prepared to make that deal. Iran would be wise to take it. Otherwise, they would have to deal with the types of plans that I just had a chance to see inside Central Command.\u201d<\/p>\n
By Thursday afternoon, Mr. Trump issued another message on social media, announcing to the world that he had canceled \u201cthe scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the U.S. military, commanders do not typically speak publicly about future operations to avoid tipping off an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[15019,1452,4471,14670,9,24,63,4472,134,136,135,1069,5251,1876],"class_list":["post-263501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-defense-department","tag-donald-j","tag-hegseth","tag-iran","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-pete","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news","tag-trump","tag-united-states-defense-and-military-forces","tag-united-states-politics-and-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}