‘I’ll take everybody with me, and if we have to, we’ll come back to do spot hits,’ the president says.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday previewed a possible Iran exit strategy for the United States by saying the military could leave “pretty quickly” and return when it’s needed.
While speaking to Reuters, Trump was asked when the U.S. military would consider the more than monthlong conflict to be over. He responded by saying that the United States will leave “pretty quickly.”
“They won’t have a nuclear weapon because they are incapable of that now, and then I‘ll leave, and I’ll take everybody with me, and if we have to, we’ll come back to do spot hits,” Trump said, detailing a possible strategy moving forward.
Trump told the newswire service that he believes the Iranian regime will be compliant with the United States “because they don’t want to be blasted anymore.”
“The big thing we have is they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon,” he said, adding: “Nor do they want one.”
With the war in its fifth week, Trump has been under pressure to wrap up the operation due to rising gasoline and energy prices. The president scheduled a 9 p.m. ET speech on Wednesday to discuss the way forward.
A day earlier, Trump told reporters at the White House the conflict could end within two to three weeks. He’s said that Washington is in discussions with certain Iranian regime officials, telling the New York Post on Monday that one of them is Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, although some Iranian foreign ministry officials have denied that any direct talks are occurring.
The president on Wednesday ahead of his speech to the American people said that Iran’s president wanted a cease-fire, according to a statement Trump made through his Truth Social website. However, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said Trump’s remarks were “false and baseless.”
Trump also remarked that a cease-fire would only happen once the Strait of Hormuz is open and free to use. “Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!” he wrote.
