{"id":10912,"date":"2026-05-07T10:18:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T10:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/10912\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T10:18:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T10:18:12","slug":"iranian-threat-in-germany-more-urgent-than-publicly-announced-nyt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/10912\/","title":{"rendered":"Iranian threat in Germany more urgent than publicly announced – NYT"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThey have to have guns. And I think they\u2019re getting some guns. As soon as they have guns, they\u2019ll fight like, as good as anybody there is,\u201d Trump said in an interview with The Hugh Hewitt Show.<\/p>\n

Trump also suggested that US military pressure had already significantly weakened Iran and that further action could be completed within a short timeframe.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve taken out much of what we\u2019d have to do, probably another two weeks, two weeks, maybe three weeks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Trump said large numbers of Iranians would struggle to confront armed forces without access to weapons.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t have an unarmed population against people with AK-47s,\u201d he said, adding that even hundreds of thousands of protesters would struggle against a smaller armed force.<\/p>\n

He said previous protests had been met with heavy force, citing the deaths of tens of thousands of demonstrators, and suggested this had made him cautious about encouraging renewed unrest.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very torn on it, because they lost 42,000 people in the first two weeks. I don\u2019t really want to see that,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

Past weapons transfers<\/p>\n

Trump said during a phone interview with Fox Sunday in early April that his administration had previously attempted to send firearms to Iranian protesters but that the effort did not reach its intended recipients.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe sent guns to the protesters, a lot of them. We sent them through the Kurds. And I think the Kurds took the guns,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He repeated similar complaints, saying he was \u201cvery upset with a certain group of people\u201d and warning they would \u201cpay a big price.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several Kurdish groups have denied receiving such shipments.<\/p>\n

\"TrumpTrump rhetoric signals shift toward conflict, experts say<\/a><\/p>\n

Calls in Washington to arm Iranians<\/p>\n

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has also urged the administration to pursue a policy of directly arming Iranian civilians.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I were President Trump and I were Israel, I would load the Iranian people up with weapons so they can go to the streets armed and turn the tide of battle inside Iran,\u201d Graham said in an interview with Fox News on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t need American boots on the ground. We\u2019ve got millions of boots on the ground in Iran. They just don\u2019t have any weapons,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Graham described the idea as \u201ca Second Amendment solution,\u201d suggesting that arming civilians could help bring down the government without direct foreign military involvement.<\/p>\n

He also called for alternative channels to deliver weapons, urging the administration not to rely on Kurdish intermediaries.<\/p>\n

Military pressure and internal divisions<\/p>\n

Trump framed his comments within a broader assessment that Iran\u2019s military and economic capacity had been significantly weakened.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have no navy. They have no air force. They have no anti-aircraft,\u201d he told The Hugh Hewitt Show.<\/p>\n

Trump added that financial pressure may have affected the government\u2019s ability to pay its forces.<\/p>\n

\"TrumpTrump wants deal soon or may bomb Iran – Axios <\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t think they\u2019re paying their soldiers and their Guard anymore,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He also suggested divisions within Iran\u2019s security structure, drawing a distinction between the regular army and other forces.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe purposefully have not gone after them too much, because we think that they\u2019re much more moderate,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

At the same time, he said the United States was not seeking to dismantle the country\u2019s military institutions entirely.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not looking to decimate the army,\u201d he said, referring to past regional experiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, when they did Iraq… and the worst thing was they got rid of the all the leaders, so nobody knew who the leader was. And then all of a sudden, you had ISIS. We don\u2019t want to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nuclear focus remains central<\/p>\n

Despite discussing internal unrest, Trump said that preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons remains the central objective of US policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one thing I will say is they will never have a nuclear weapon,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Trump said any potential agreement would require the return of highly enriched uranium and limits on missile development, though he stressed that nuclear restrictions remain the priority.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThey have to have guns. And I think they\u2019re getting some guns. As soon as they have guns,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5,253,9831,9827,9825,1356,9828,9823,9826,9824,9829,381,9830],"class_list":{"0":"post-10912","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-germany","9":"tag-iran","10":"tag-iran-and-china","11":"tag-iran-covid","12":"tag-iran-economy","13":"tag-iran-government","14":"tag-iran-media-iran-and-the-united-states","15":"tag-iran-news","16":"tag-iran-nuclear","17":"tag-iran-politics","18":"tag-iran-us","19":"tag-middle-east","20":"tag-us-sanctions"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}