Amid heightened tensions in the Middle East, US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said the war with Iran was likely to “end soon,” though he did not provide a specific timeline. He also issued a warning to Tehran, saying the United States would respond decisively if Iran attempted “anything cute,” while describing the conflict as a “short-term excursion.”
Speaking at a news conference in Florida, Trump said, “It’s going to be ended soon, and if it starts up again they’ll be hit even harder.” He added, “We took a little excursion because we felt we had to do that to get rid of some people. And I think you’ll see it’s going to be a short-term excursion.”
Earlier, during a CBS interview, Trump said the war was “very complete” and warned Iran against doing “anything cute.” “They've shot everything they have to shoot, and they better not try anything cute or it's going to be the end of that country,” he said. “If they do anything bad, that would be the end of Iran and you'd never hear the name again.”
“I think the war is very complete, pretty much. They have no navy, no communications, they've got no air force,” he added. He also claimed Iran would have attacked first if the US and Israel had not acted.
Trump’s latest remarks came after US-Israeli strikes on February 28, and just an hour after the Pentagon said the United States had “only just begun to fight.” “If we didn't go in, they would have come in after us... Within a week, they were going to attack us 100 per cent,” Trump said.
“They were ready. They had all these missiles far more than anyone thought... They were going to attack all of the Middle East and Israel. If they had a nuclear weapon, they would have used it on Israel. This was going to be a major attack. They had all of those missile sites and launchers that we got rid of about 80 per cent of them... They have very few launchers left. What our military has done is amazing,” he added.
