President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he’s not seeking regime change in Iran. The comments come two days after floating the possibility on social media, amid a cease-fire that he announced hours later.
“I don’t want it. I’d like to see everything calm down as quickly as possible,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One as he traveled to a NATO summit in Europe, responding to a question on whether he wants the Islamic regime to collapse. “Regime change takes chaos and ideally, we don’t want to see so much chaos, so we’ll see how it does.”
Over the weekend, he wrote on Truth Social that “if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change???”
On Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told ABC News said that “if the Iranian regime refuses to come to a peaceful, diplomatic solution—which the president is still interested in engaging in … why shouldn’t the Iranian people take away the power of this incredibly violent regime?”
In response to Trump’s comment on Truth Social, the press secretary said that Trump “was just simply raising a question” about Iran and added that “as far as our military posture, it has not been changed.”
Trump’s comment on Tuesday was made after he criticized both Iran and Israel for launching strikes after he announced a cease-fire on social media on Monday evening. The two countries had been bombing one another for more than a week before the United States launched airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend, while Iran launched a volley of missiles at an American base in Qatar on Monday.
Following the Israeli air campaign, Trump told reporters on Air Force One that Iran should be able to rebuild.
“You know, the Iranians are very good traders, very good businesspeople, and they’ve got a lot of oil. They should be fine. They should be able to rebuild and do a good job,” he said on Tuesday. “They’re never going to have nuclear, but other than that they should do a great job.”
As the cease-fire between Iran and Israel took effect Tuesday, Israel’s emergency services released final figures from 12 days of fighting. According to the data, 1,347 people in Israel were affected, including 28 killed, 17 seriously wounded, 29 moderately wounded, 872 lightly wounded, and 401 treated for anxiety.
On Tuesday morning, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office acknowledged that Israel had struck a radar site near Tehran in what it said was retaliation for Iranian missiles fired three-and-a-half hours after the cease-fire had been due to begin.
It said Israel had decided to refrain from further attacks following a call between Netanyahu and Trump, but did not explicitly say whether the strike on the radar site took place before or after they spoke.
Trump wrote on Truth Social Tuesday that “all planes will turn around and head home, while doing a friendly ‘Plane Wave’ to Iran. Nobody will be hurt, the Ceasefire is in effect!”
That followed a social media post that said: “Israel. Do not drop those bombs. If you do it it is a major violation. Bring your pilots home, now!”
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
