Name: Iran's Khamenei vows 'no mercy' to Israel, US strikes will cause 'irreparable damage' | DW News
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Iran's Supreme Leader says his country won't surrender in the conflict with Israel.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also warned that any U.S. military intervention would bring irreparable consequences.

President Donald Trump has signaled the U.S. could join Israel's bombing campaign against Iranian nuclear facilities.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says his country is not backing down in its conflict with Israel.

President Donald Trump called for Tehran's unconditional surrender.

Khamenei has warned the U.S. not to get involved in the conflict.

America getting involved in this would be 100% to its detriment.

The damage it would suffer would be much greater than what Iran may suffer.

The damage to America, if it gets involved militarily, would undoubtedly be irreparable damage.

Earlier on Wednesday, Iranian state television broadcast what it said was an Israeli attack drone shot down overnight in central Iran.

Israel has confirmed one of its drones had been downed.

More explosions were seen and heard in Iran's capital, Tehran, according to eyewitnesses.

Iranian news websites claim that this footage shows smoke rising in the direction of the Qajar weapons production facility, just 30 kilometers southeast of Tehran.

Israel says it struck missile and centrifuge production facilities.

It also released footage which it claims shows five attack helicopters being hit in western Iran.

As the conflict intensifies, foreign nationals continue to leave Iran.

Among them Pakistanis, many of whom are advised to get out of the neighboring country as quickly as possible.

Streets in Iran's capital, meanwhile, appear empty.

Those who could get out have done so, others forced to wait for what happens next.

Let's bring in Marina Moran, a military analyst from King's College London.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowing there that his country will show no mercy towards Israel's leadership.

Iran is striking a very defiant tone right now.

Well, what else would we expect from Iran?

If we look at Iran's position right now, Iran is weakened.

However, giving up now and saying we surrender, Iran would lose credibility.

It might incite popular unrest inside of Iran.

So in the information space, whether these promises will be followed up is another question.

But in the information space, it is important for Ayatollah to say we will not surrender, our response will be severe, and so on and so forth.

So this is a kind of rhetoric that is very logical in this situation.

Even if we look at the code names of Iranian operations, kept promise number three, for instance, it has a symbolic value.

So I think, yes, Iran will try to respond.

It is escalating now and we are caught in the spiral.

But we have to also understand that this war is not just fought with missiles, it's also fought with words.

The Iranian leader also made a point of saying any US strike will have serious irreparable consequences.

This presumably a message to the US to stay out of this conflict?

Well, to coin a phrase, I'd say that Iran is trying to call the US bluff, because Donald Trump has said many things throughout his presidency now, which he hasn't followed up on.

So we don't know exactly whether the US will enter this war, because the US has already experienced Iraq in 2003, and it has experienced how wrong it can go and how difficult it is to exit that war.

And this escalation would mean that the US would also have to use ground troops.

And this is very much at odds with the Make America Great Again supporters within the United States.

So from this perspective, yes, Iran will say we will remain defiant.

They don't really have a good strategic move here.

But they realize that it's not that simple for the US to make that decision to deploy the B-2 and to enter this war.

But this is, again, this rhetoric, Iran will not surrender.

Iran needs to keep the unity within the population.

And the further it goes, the worse it becomes.

And so there is this importance to unite the country against an outside enemy rather than have different factions fighting each other within Iran.

We are hearing, though, Marina, we're hearing from CBS News in the US that President Trump is considering joining Israel's military campaign to strike Iranian nuclear facilities.

How would this change the dynamics of the conflict?

Well, it would certainly escalate the conflict because already at this stage, the conflict has become internationalized.

And on the one hand, we have Israel and the United States.

And groups and countries that support Iran, Russia has signed a strategic partnership with Iran.

And there are already talks within Russia.

Of course, the Russians prefer to seek a diplomatic solution, but Russia would still have some capacity to provide military aid to Iran.

We also have China and we have North Korea.

Hezbollah is now out of the game, but we still have the Houthis in Yemen.

And so this might escalate to a broader Middle Eastern war.

And of course, the Arab countries will have to take sides.

And they realize that even if they don't like Iran, and they realize that they will have to participate, they will be dragged into this war because essentially Israel and Iran don't share a border.

So the airspace of those countries will need to be used and so on and so forth.

And if it comes to the United States participating in the strike, we don't know where it will end.

And also North Korea has pledged to support Iran and send a nuclear weapon to Iran.

And maybe we shouldn't take this very seriously, but certainly we should not discount such statements.

And so it's risking to become a world war in a sense.

Marina Maron, thank you so much for your analysis.