Trump Approves Military Action Against Iran, Then Quickly Pulls Back

President Donald Trumps actions came in response to Iran shooting down an unmanned American spy drone. He had approved military strikes on several Iranian targets but abruptly pulled back, according to anonymous US officials.

Tensions between Iran and the United States have been on the rise yet again, after the recent Gulf of Oman tanker Attacks. Previously The trump administration pulled out of the Iran Nuclear deal in 2015.

After Trump ordered the attack,military planes and ships were getting ready to attack Iranian targets, however the attack was then called of for undisclosed reasons. A New York Times article said that it wasn’t clear whether Trump changed his mind, or that it was called off due to logistics and strategic considerations. When asked by other news sources the  Department of Defense refused to comment. The administration also refused to comment on ‘pre-operational military planning.

Iran claims that the unmanned surveillance drone had invaded their air space and was then shot down by a surface to ground missile, while the US claims that the drone was in international airspace.

At 00:14 US drone took off from UAE in stealth mode & violated Iranian airspace. It was targeted at 04:05 at the coordinates (25°59'43"N 57°02'25"E) near Kouh-e Mobarak.

We've retrieved sections of the US military drone in OUR territorial waters where it was shot down. pic.twitter.com/pJ34Tysmsg

— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) June 20, 2019

 

Only hours ago Trump in a series of tweets reiterated his stance.

….On Monday they shot down an unmanned drone flying in International Waters. We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it, not….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 21, 2019