U.S. President Donald Trump said on Feb. 1 that Iran’s decision on a nuclear deal will determine whether Iranian leader Ali Khamenei’s prediction that a U.S. attack could lead to a regional war is accurate.
“Of course he would say that,” Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.
“But we have the biggest, most powerful ships in the world over there, very close, couple of days, and hopefully we’ll make a deal. If we don’t make a deal, then we’ll find out whether or not he was right.”
Khamenei earlier said Iran does not seek to attack any country but “will strike a strong blow against anyone who attacks and harasses” its territory, according to state media, after Trump posted on Truth Social that “a massive armada” was being deployed to the Middle East.
Iranian Supreme National Security Council secretary Ali Larijani said on X on Jan. 31 that arrangements for negotiations were underway, but did not provide any details.
Trump directed the Middle East military build-up after recent protests in Iran devolved into deadly confrontations with Iranian security forces. More recently, the president has pressured Iran’s Islamist regime to make a deal to constrain its nuclear program.
“As I told Iran once before, MAKE A DEAL!” Trump wrote in a Jan. 28 post on Truth Social. “They didn’t, and there was ‘Operation Midnight Hammer,’ a major destruction of Iran. The next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again.”
Operation Midnight Hammer refers to the U.S. airstrikes conducted in June 2025 against three Iranian nuclear facilities, which occurred amid an exchange of missile salvos between Israel and Iran at the time.
Trump had urged Iran to quickly “come to the table” for negotiations on a nuclear deal, saying that the fleet led by the USS Abraham Lincoln is prepared “to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary.”
Following the June 2025 airstrikes on its key nuclear infrastructure, Iran formally suspended its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which had on June 12 declared Iran noncompliant and in breach of its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The nuclear watchdog said at the time that Iran failed to cooperate and give credible explanations for man-made uranium traces found at several undeclared sites. Iran has long maintained that its nuclear activities are strictly civilian.
Tensions further escalated between the United States and Iran earlier this year when Trump warned of military intervention in response to the Iranian regime’s deadly crackdown on anti-government protests, which erupted over soaring inflation and the collapse of the Iranian rial.
As of Feb. 1, at least 6,425 protesters and 214 security forces and government supporters have died since the onset of the protests, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, which relies on supporters in Iran to cross-check its information. The actual number is feared to be much higher.
Ryan Morgan and Evgenia Filimianova contributed to this report.
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