Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made himself an even bigger target with a defiant speech, according to a foreign policy expert.
President Donald Trump, who has said he knows where Khamenei is "hiding," has demanded the "complete give-up" of Iran as he considers a military strike alongside Israel, but the country's supreme leader struck a defiant note Wednesday in a nationally televised address.
"Intelligent people who know Iran, the Iranian nation, and its history will never speak to this nation in threatening language because the Iranian nation will not surrender," Khamenei said, "and the Americans should know that any U.S. military intervention will undoubtedly cause irreparable harm to them."
Trump is reportedly warming up to the idea of joining Israel's military campaign against the Middle Eastern nation, and former State Department official Joel Rubin told "CNN This Morning" that Khamenei would likely draw the U.S. president's ire with his speech.
"My first thought after hearing the readout of the supreme leader's speech is he may very well have signed his own death warrant with that speech, right," said Rubin, who served under Barack Obama. "Because this is the attitude that has led us into the moment that we're in right now. Look, there have been off-ramps provided to the supreme leader for many years, including by the Trump team, and I'm not going to say their diplomacy was incredibly robust."
"It was sort of trying to figure out what the opportunities were with Iran, but they did offer secretary [of state Marco] Rubio did offer a civilian nuclear program to Iran in exchange for no enrichment, and Iran said no, and the supreme leader continues to drive Iran in this direction, and so I think this is a real moment."
Israel has already attacked one of Iran's two known underground nuclear enrichment sites with a raid on Natanz on the first day of the assault, but Rubin said an attack on the other, at Fordo, was inevitable.
"This question about Fordo, Fordo is like a pincer grip," Rubin said. "What's really important to understand now is that because of the strikes that have gone forward in many ways, Fordo must be hit, because if it's not hit, the enrichment capacity there is such that Iran could quickly move to enrich to weapons-grade levels and tried to test a crude nuclear device, and now we're in that trap."
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