Allies Urged Trump Not to Fire on Iran 01/16 06:28

   Several Middle Eastern allies of the United States have urged the Trump 
administration to hold off on strikes against Iran for the government's deadly 
crackdown on protesters, according to an Arab diplomat familiar with the matter.

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- Several Middle Eastern allies of the United States have 
urged the Trump administration to hold off on strikes against Iran for the 
government's deadly crackdown on protesters, according to an Arab diplomat 
familiar with the matter.

   Top officials from Egypt, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have raised concerns 
in the last 48 hours that a U.S. military intervention would shake the global 
economy and destabilize an already volatile region, said the diplomat who spoke 
on condition of anonymity to describe the sensitive conversations.

   Oil prices fell on Thursday as the markets appeared to take note of 
President Donald Trump's shifting tone as a sign that he's leaning away from 
attacking Iran after days of launching blistering threats at Tehran for its 
brutal crackdown.

   Nevertheless, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday 
maintained that "all options remain on the table" for Trump as he deals with 
Iran.

   "The truth is only President Trump knows what he's going to do and a very, 
very small team of advisers are read into his thinking on that," Leavitt said. 
She added, "He continues to closely monitor the situation on the ground in 
Iran."

   The nationwide protests challenging Iran's theocracy appeared increasingly 
smothered Thursday, a week after authorities shut the country off from the 
world and escalated a bloody crackdown that activists say has killed at least 
2,637 people.

   The delicate diplomacy from Arab officials comes during a period of 
rhetorical whiplash from Trump.

   Trump, in a matter of a day, went from offering assurances to Iranian 
citizens that "help is on its way" and urging them to take over their country's 
institutions to abruptly declaring on Wednesday that he had received 
information from "very important sources on the other side" that Iran had 
stopped killing protesters and was not going forward with executions.

   The Arab officials also urged senior Iranian officials to quickly end the 
violent repression of protesters. They warned that any Iranian response to a 
U.S. action against the U.S. or other targets in the region would have 
significant repercussions for Iran, the diplomat said.

   Asked about reports of allies asking Trump to hold off on the strikes at a 
White House briefing, Leavitt did not directly address the matter.

   Ambassador Mike Waltz, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations, said military 
action is an option that remains in play.

   "President Trump is a man of action, not endless talk like we see at the 
United Nations," Waltz said in remarks at a meeting of the U.N. Security 
Council to discuss the Iran protests. "He has made it clear all options are on 
the table to stop the slaughter."

   But Trump himself appeared to send signals he could be backing away from a 
potential U.S. strike on Iran after days of threatening one was in the offing.

   He took to social media to highlight a Fox News headline about the 
suspension of a death sentence for an Iranian shopkeeper, 26-year-old Erfan 
Soltani.

   Iranian state media denied Soltani had been condemned to death. Iranian 
judicial authorities said Soltani was being held in a detention facility 
outside of the capital.

   Alongside other protesters, he has been accused of "propaganda activities 
against the regime," state media said.

   "This is good news. Hopefully, it will continue!" Trump said in his post 
about the reported pause in the execution of the shopkeeper. The White House 
later asserted that Iran had halted 800 scheduled executions.

   Trump has been known to purposefully display ambiguity about his intentions 
to maintain an element of surprise.

   Last June, as Trump was weighing whether to follow Israel as it carried out 
strikes on Iran, Leavitt read a message to reporters that she said came 
"directly from the president" in which Trump said he would decide whether to 
strike Iran "within the next two weeks."

   Less than two days later, Trump ordered B-2 bombers to carry out strikes on 
critical Iranian nuclear sites.

   Jeremy Shapiro, research director of the European Council on Foreign 
Relations, said Trump may have decided to hold off on strikes because of 
concerns about the current U.S. force posture in the Middle East.

   There are currently no U.S. aircraft carriers, considered a critical asset 
in a significant military operation, in the region after the USS Gerald R. Ford 
and its strike group were deployed to the U.S. Southern Command region as the 
part of a massive counter-narcotics operation focused on Venezuela.

   "It might be that they're delaying things and using the time for getting 
that posture correct," Shapiro said.

   The Trump administration on Thursday also announced new sanction s against 
Iran.

   Included in Thursday's sanctions is the secretary of the Supreme Council for 
National Security, whom the Treasury Department accuses of being one of the 
first officials to call for violence against Iranian protesters.

   The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control also designated 
18 people and companies that the U.S. says have participated in laundering 
money from sales of Iranian oil to foreign markets as part of a shadow banking 
network of sanctioned Iranian financial institutions Bank Melli and Shahr Bank.