WASHINGTON — The U.S. ambassador to Turkey said Friday that an American strike on Iran could come as soon as this weekend — a remark President Donald Trump then played down, capping a week in which Washington scaled back staffing at Middle East embassies over Iranian threats.
“Could there be a strike this weekend? Absolutely,” Tom Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey and Washington’s special envoy for Syria, said in a podcast interview in the Gulf on Friday. He added that Trump remains open to a diplomatic deal and that negotiations have gone on for months, and said a potential strike would not aim to overthrow Iran’s government.
Barrack has no direct role in Iran policy, a point noted in reporting on his remarks.
Asked about the comments in Florida on Friday, Trump played them down.
“If that’s the case, I don’t know anything about it,” Trump said.
Trump has previously signaled he could resume military action against Iran as diplomacy stalls, but had indicated major action would not come before the U.S. midterm elections on November 3.
The remarks came the same day U.S. intelligence warned that Iranian plotting against Americans abroad has reached “advanced stages,” and after the State Department scaled back staffing at embassies in Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Sources: Associated Press; Axios.
