Trump cautions 'bad things' in store if Iran won't negotiate as Islamic Republic touts 'Missile City'
President Donald Trump promised that ‘bad things’ would happen to Iran if the regime does not come to the table for nuclear negotiations.
"My big preference is that we work it out with Iran, but if we don’t work it out, bad things are gonna happen to Iran," the president said Friday.
Iran is enriching uranium to 60%, just shy of the 90% weapons-grade. Experts say it could have a nuclear weapon within weeks if it were to take the final steps to building one.
In response to U.S. sanctions threats, Iran showed off a sprawling underground tunnel system replete with missiles, launchers, engines and other advanced weapons.
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A video released this week by state media shows two Iranian military leaders, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri and IRGC Aerospace Force Commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh, riding in a vehicle through long, weapons-packed tunnels that Tehran has dubbed "Missile City."
The 85-second clip, which has not been independently verified, is set to menacing music and suggests that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps stands ready to respond to threats of an attack from the U.S. and Israel.
"Iran’s ballistic missile force remains the largest in the Middle East," said Behnam Taleblu, fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "This is all part of the regime’s deterrent strategy to cement the idea of any conflict with Tehran being a costly and protracted one."
The move comes as U.S. is bolstering its forces in the Middle East. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently sent a second aircraft carrier, the U.S. Navy’s USS Carl Vinson, to join the USS Harry S. Truman‘s carrier strike group, whose deployment was also extended.
The U.S. also recently deployed two B-2 stealth bombers to the Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean, a warning to Iran and Yemen's Houthi militia. The planes are capable of carrying 30,000-pound "bunker buster" bombs and are now situated within range of Iran.
Weeks ago, Trump wrote a letter to Iran urging the regime to engage in talks on its nuclear program.
Kamal Kharazi, the top foreign policy adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Thursday that the regime would engage in "indirect" talks, according to local news reports.
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"The Islamic Republic has not closed all the doors and is willing to begin indirect negotiations with the United States."
"Our policy is to not negotiate directly while there is maximum pressure policy and threats of military strikes," foreign minister Abbas Aragchi explained. "But indirect negotiations can take place as they have in the past."
If talks falter, the U.S. and Israel have floated the possibility of targeted strikes on underground nuclear facilities.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration launched a series of offensive attacks on the Houthis in Yemen to send a message to Tehran, which supports them.
"Let nobody be fooled! The hundreds of attacks being made by Houthi, the sinister mobsters and thugs based in Yemen, who are hated by the Yemeni people, all emanate from, and are created by, IRAN," Trump wrote on Truth Social at the time.
"Iran has played 'the innocent victim' of rogue terrorists from which they’ve lost control, but they haven’t lost control," he continued. "They’re dictating every move, giving them the weapons, supplying them with money and highly sophisticated Military equipment, and even, so-called, "Intelligence.'"