Donald Trump has left very strict instructions for if he is ever assassinated by Iran.
A warning made over a year ago is suddenly dominating headlines, and given what’s unfolding in the Middle East right now, it’s not hard to see why.
00:00
03:36
Read More
Back in February 2025, long before the bombs started falling, President Donald Trump delivered one of his most chilling statements on record.
He wasn’t talking about tariffs or the border. He was talking about what would happen to Iran if it ever tried to kill him.
Now, with a full-scale military conflict raging, those words are being heard in a very different light.
What’s actually going on with Iran right now?
Here’s the plain-English version: the United States and Israel launched a massive, coordinated military assault on Iran on February 28, 2026, and the world hasn’t been the same since.
The operation targeted key officials, military commanders, and strategic facilities across the country.
Most dramatically, it included the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a man who had ruled Iran for over three decades and was the central pillar of its entire power structure.
To understand how we got here, though, you need to know this didn’t come out of nowhere.
Tensions between Iran and both the US and Israel had been building for years. After the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, Israel systematically weakened Iranian-backed militias across the region, targeting Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israel and Iran exchanged direct strikes in 2024 and fought a brief 12-day war in 2025 that included US airstrikes aimed at destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities.
White House
The USA has recently launched attacks on Iran. Credit: Adobe Stock
Then things inside Iran deteriorated rapidly. Starting in late December 2025, the largest anti-government protests since the 1979 revolution swept across the country, driven by economic collapse, a cratered currency, and skyrocketing prices.
The protests spread to over 100 cities. The regime responded with violent crackdowns.
That crackdown became part of Trump’s justification for acting. In an early morning video announcing the strikes, Trump addressed the Iranian people directly, per The Verge: “The country will be yours to take.”
His stated objectives included eliminating Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, neutralizing its navy, and fundamentally changing its government.
What are Americans actually thinking?
Short answer: most of them aren’t on board.
Nearly 6 in 10 Americans disapprove of the US decision to take military action against Iran, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS.
Overall, 59% of Americans disapprove of the initial strikes, while 41% approve. Strong disapproval, at 31%, roughly doubles strong approval at 16%.
A majority of Americans (56%) say they believe a long-term military conflict between the US and Iran is at least somewhat likely, including 24% who view that as a very likely outcome.
Just 12% would favor sending US ground troops into Iran, while 60% would oppose it.
Trust in Trump’s handling of the crisis is also shaky. Sixty percent say they don’t trust him to make the right decisions on the use of force in Iran, 62% say he should seek congressional approval before any further military action, and just 27% believe the US made enough of an effort at diplomacy before striking.
Even among people who support the strikes, the confidence isn’t exactly overwhelming. Roughly 40% of those who approved of the military action still aren’t convinced it will actually make Iran less of a threat.
Overall, 54% of Americans believe Iran will become more of a threat as a result of the strikes, not less.
The partisan divide, as expected, is sharp. Seventy-seven percent of Republicans approve of the military action, compared with 32% of independents and just 18% of Democrats.
Tehran
Tensions between Iran and both the US and Israel had been building for years. Credit: Adobe Stock
Why did the US and Israel attack — and how long could this last?
Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu framed the assault as both defensive and preventative, their primary stated goal being to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon before it was too late.
The timing, however, raised serious questions. The strikes came in the middle of active nuclear negotiations.
At the conclusion of a third round of talks in Geneva, Omani Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Albusaidi, acting as mediator, had announced that significant progress had been made and that technical talks were expected to resume the following Monday.
Iran had reportedly agreed to surrender its stockpile of enriched uranium and allow full IAEA verification of its nuclear program.
Critics were pointed in their response. “There are good reasons why previous presidents were reluctant to become embroiled in a war with Iran,” the Council on Foreign Relations noted.
“Trump ignored all the caveats. Now he will have to deal with the fallout from the biggest gamble of his presidency.”
As for how long this goes on, Trump has offered a brisk timeline. When asked by CNN reporters, he said: “I don’t want to see it go on too long. I always thought it would be four weeks. And we’re a little ahead of schedule.”
Not everyone shares his confidence. Analysts warn that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps network could carry out retaliatory attacks against US personnel and military bases across the region, and potentially inside the United States itself.
The conflict is already spreading. Retaliatory strikes launched from Iran within days killed at least 18 people, including four US service members, across the Persian Gulf region and in Israel.
Donald Trump
Donald Trump has left very strict instructions for if he is ever assassinated by Iran. Credit: Alamy
What would happen if Iran assassinated Trump?
Here’s where it gets very personal — and genuinely alarming.
Back in February 2025, during a discussion about Iran’s escalating threats, Trump made a stark, unambiguous declaration about what would happen if the Iranian government ever attempted to assassinate him.
The remarks, captured and reported by CBS 42 at the time, left almost no room for interpretation.
“They haven’t done that, and that would be a terrible thing for them to do,” Trump said.
“Not because of me, if they did that, they would be obliterated. That would be the end. I’ve left instructions; if they do it, they get obliterated, there won’t be anything left. And they shouldn’t be able to do it.”
The statement was made in the context of his broader ‘maximum pressure’ strategy, a campaign designed to force Tehran into negotiations by making the cost of defiance too high.
When asked why former President Joe Biden hadn’t issued similar threats during his tenure, Trump was blunt.
He suggested the absence of such a declaration came down to what he called a ‘lack of intelligence.’
The remarks went relatively unnoticed at the time. But following the killing of Khamenei and the launch of full-scale military operations against Iran, they resurfaced with force, and are now being read as a window into exactly the kind of hardline strategic thinking that shaped the current conflict.
Whether Trump’s instructions would ever need to be formally carried out remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: the president made sure everyone in Washington and in Tehran knew they existed.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment