President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Iran’s regime is “getting weaker and weaker by the day” and suggested Tehran may be nearing the limits of what it can withstand under mounting U.S. pressure, one day after calling on Iranians to “rise up and fight.” The remarks marked an escalation in Trump’s increasingly explicit focus on pressure building inside Iran, as Washington combines economic isolation, control of the Strait of Hormuz and overwhelming military leverage in a campaign senior administration officials say could leave Tehran facing internal fracture, popular revolt or a return to negotiations on U.S. terms.
Asked in the Oval Office whether he would send the CIA into Iran to arm Iranians after urging them to rise against the regime, Trump declined to say. “I wouldn’t want to say that,” Trump replied. “I’d love to tell you that, but it wouldn’t be appropriate to say.”
