Iran vows to respond harshly to any attack as Trump says he will “beat the hell out of them” if nuclear activity resumes.

Tehran, Iran – Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian promised on Tuesday a strong response to any attack, appearing to respond to President Trump’s warning the day before about Iran’s alleged efforts to rebuild its nuclear program.

“The response of the Islamic Republic of Iran to any act of aggression will be severe and disappointing,” Pezeshkian said in a social media post.

Pezeshkian did not elaborate, but his statement came a day after Mr. Trump has suggested the US could launch new military strikes if Iran tries to regroup its nuclear program.

Mr. Trump said this during his speech talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the American leader’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

“Now I hear that Iran is trying to build again,” said Mr. Trump when speaking with Netanyahu after their meeting. “And if they are there, we will have to bring them down. We will bring them down. We will get the hell out of them. But I hope that doesn’t happen.”

The two leaders discussed the possibility of renewed military action against Tehran 12 months after a 12-day air war in June that killed nearly 1,100 Iranians, including top military officials and scientists. Iran killed 28 people in Israel.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly announced the “complete elimination” of Iran’s nuclear program after three sites were bombed in a US secret attack in June, but. questions were raised about the extent of the damage caused. An first split test decided that these strikes would set back Tehran’s nuclear program by several months, and Mr.

Some Democratic Alliance lawmakers, after a secret conference about the strikes, said Mr. Trump has misled the American people about the level of success achieved.

Mr. Trump suggested on Monday that he could order another US strike against Iran if he believed it was necessary.

“If it is confirmed, they know the results, and the results will be very strong, maybe even stronger than last time,” said Mr.

Mr. Trump said he heard Iran was upgrading its capabilities after his closed-door meeting Monday with Netanyahu, who has pressured US administrations for decades to take a hard line against Iran.

“Netanyahu is still focused on reducing threats from Iran to Israel, which he has been in for nearly 30 years,” CBS News national security contributor Samantha Vinograd, who was the Obama administration’s top Homeland Security official, said Tuesday.

But Vinograd added that “the United States and Israel may have different intelligence assessments of what Iran’s intentions are, its capabilities.”

He said the US strikes over the summer – known as Operation Midnight Hammer – had “destroyed Iran’s nuclear facilities, yet Iran retains highly enriched uranium that could be used to detonate a bomb.”

Vinograd said, however, that the immediate threat posed by Iran — not only to Israel but also to US forces in the region — may be its arsenal of conventional missiles, not its own. the power to try to build a working nuclear weapon.

“Iran has had more missiles than any other nation in the region, except for Israel, and they actually have their power when it comes to causing damage throughout the region, both aimed at Israel, American forces overseas, through proxies and so on.”

“There seems to be some kind of intelligence gap between what the US thinks Iran is doing and can’t do, and what Israeli intelligence is saying in those areas.”

Pezeshkian said on Saturday that tensions between the two sides had risen again, saying: “We are in total war with the US, Israel and Europe; they don’t want our country to remain stable.”

Iran has insisted that it is no longer burning uranium at any site in the country, trying to signal to the West that it remains open to possible negotiations over its atomic program.

U.S. intelligence agencies and the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency determined Iran had no formal nuclear weapons program in 2003, although Tehran had continued to enrich uranium to 60%, a short technological step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.