Time is running out, Trump says as US armada heads towards Iran

The threat of a US-Iranian war appeared to loom closer yesterday when Donald Trump warned that time was running out for Tehran and said a massive armada was moving quickly towards the country "with great power, enthusiasm and purpose".

- Patrick Wintour Andrew Roth

The US president wrote on social media yesterday that the fleet headed by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln was larger than the one sent to Venezuela before the removal of Nicolás Maduro - and was “prepared to rapidly fulfil its missions with speed and violence if necessary”.

Trump said: “Hopefully Iran will quickly ‘Come to the Table’ and negotiate a fair and equitable deal - NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS - one that is good for all parties. Time is running out, it is truly of the essence!

“As I told Iran once before, MAKE A DEAL! They didn’t, and there was ‘Operation Midnight Hammer,’ a major destruction of Iran. The next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again.”

It was the starkest indication yet from Trump that he intends to mount some kind of military strike imminently if Iran refuses to negotiate a deal on its nuclear programme. The post also reflects a remarkable shift in the White House’s stated rationale for sending a carrier strike group to the region, moving from outrage over the death of protesters to Tehran’s nuclear programme.

Trump urged Iranians to keep protesting this month, telling them “help is on its way”, but he later backtracked on the grounds that “the killing has stopped”. Activists say more than 30,000 people were killed during the recent unrest.

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, told the Senate yesterday that thousands had been killed and said the Iranian government was “probably weaker than it has ever been” since the 1979 revolution.

“I don’t think anyone can give you a simple answer to what happens next in Iran if the supreme leader and the regime were to fall," he said. Iranian missiles and drones could still pose a threat to US personnel in the region, he said.