Iranian President to Neighbor Nations: Sorry for the Attacks

Iran's president on Saturday apologized for attacks on regional countries even as its missiles and drones flew toward Gulf Arab states, suggesting that Tehran's political leadership couldn't exercise full command over Iran's armed forces. He also rejected US President Trump's repeated demands for surrender. President Masoud Pezeshkian, one member of a tripartite leadership council overseeing Iran since a Feb. 28 airstrike started the war and killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, delivered the defiant message exactly one week into a conflict that has spread across the region, rattled global markets and air travel, and left Iran's own leadership greatly weakened by hundreds of Israeli and American airstrikes.

The message, seemingly filmed in a hurry without professional broadcast equipment, again underlined the limited powers being exercised by the theocracy's leaders over its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which controls the ballistic missiles targeting Israel and others. It answered only to Khamenei and now appears to be picking its own targets as the conflict widens. Pezeshkian's statement on Saturday said the country's three-man leadership council had been in touch with the armed forces over the attacks. "I should apologize to the neighboring countries that were attacked by Iran, on my own behalf," the president said. "From now on, they should not attack neighboring countries or fire missiles at them, unless we are attacked by those countries. I think we should solve this through diplomacy."

Pezeshkian also kept up his criticism of Trump's call for Iran to unconditionally surrender to America. "That's a dream that they should take to their grave," he said. Trump warned in a social media post on Saturday that there would be more targets in the war, writing, "Today Iran will be hit very hard!" He added, without elaborating: "Under serious consideration for complete destruction and certain death, because of Iran's bad behavior, are areas and groups of people that were not considered for targeting up until this moment in time." The fighting has killed at least 1,230 people in Iran, more than 200 in Lebanon, and 11 in Israel, according to officials in those countries. Six US troops have been killed. More here.