The Islamic Republic’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Sunday warned Washington against deploying troops to the Middle East to bolster Israel’s defenses, saying Tehran has “no red lines” in defending its interests.
The threat came amid reports that the U.S. is considering transferring a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) mobile anti-ballistic-missile battery. This would involve the deployment of U.S. troops to operate the system in Israel.
According to Tehran’s top diplomat, the Biden administration has sent a “record amount” of weapons to the IDF, and it is now “putting lives of its troops at risk by deploying them to operate U.S. missile systems in Israel.
“While we have made tremendous efforts in recent days to contain an all-out war in our region, I say it clearly that we have no red lines in defending our people and interests,” Araghchi tweeted on Sunday.
Israeli media reported over the weekend that Jerusalem is coordinating with the White House on its retaliation to Iran’s Oct. 1 missile attack. Jerusalem’s target list for its retaliatory attack against Iran will likely include military and energy infrastructure, but not nuclear facilities or assassinations, NBC News reported on Saturday, citing U.S. officials.
Biden previously said that he would oppose an Israeli strike on Tehran’s nuclear and oil infrastructure, suggesting that such an attack would not be “proportional” to the 180 ballistic missiles that Iran fired at Israel.
The Iranian regime has informed the United States and some nations in the region that it will retaliate against an Israeli attack, an Iranian source with knowledge of diplomatic discussions told CNN on Saturday.
However, sources said that Iran is “extremely nervous” about the strike and has been engaging in diplomatic efforts to try to reduce its severity.
In July, an Iranian source told Kuwait’s Al-Jarida daily that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps delivered a shipment of “qualitative weapons” to Tehran’s Lebanon-based Hezbollah terrorist proxy.
The arms shipment reportedly included bombs and missiles carrying electromagnetic pulse (EMP) warheads. The weapons could be used against U.S. and British troops coming to Israel’s aid, the source said.
Attacks on American troops by Iranian-backed militias have surged since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in Israel’s northwestern Negev. Militias targeted U.S. bases in Syria and Iraq well over 100 times between Oct. 7, 2023, and Jan. 2, 2024, killing three and wounding scores of U.S. soldiers.