President Donald Trump said US forces will “finish the job” in Iran soon as “core strategic objectives are nearing completion”, offering a full-throated defence of the war in his first national address since the conflict began more than a month ago.
Trump got a wide audience and a chance to articulate clear objectives for the war after weeks of changing goals and often contradictory messages about whether he’s winding down or ready to escalate military operations — even as Iran kept up its attacks on Israel and Persian Gulf neighbours and airstrikes pounded Tehran.
But he spent much of his time repeating some of the same things he said in recent weeks, while also suggesting that the US was close to meeting its major military objectives in Iran and that his estimated timeline for concluding operations was two to three weeks. He promised US forces would continue to hit Iran very hard.
“For years, everyone has said that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons. But in the end, those are just words if you’re not willing to take action when the time comes,” Trump said.
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The President said: “In these past four weeks our armed forces have delivered swift, decisive, overwhelming victories on the battlefield” and slammed previous decades of US policy, saying previous presidents “made mistakes and I am correcting them.”
“The situation has been going on for 47 years and should’ve been handled long before I arrived in office,” he said.
Trump also acknowledged rising oil prices and volatile financial markets, but insisted those would be temporary.
Polling, meanwhile, shows many Americans feel the US military has gone too far in Iran — even as more American troops move into the region for a possible ground offensive. Trump opted not to deliver such an address closer to when the US and Israel first launched attacks, and questions now remain about whether it is now too late for what he says to break through.
Iranian missile fire targeted Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and Israel just before Trump’s speech.
Trump encourages other countries to go take the Strait
In his speech, Trump seemed to suggest he had ruled out going into Iran to get the enriched uranium, though he has been clear that the country could “never have a nuclear weapon”.
“The nuclear sites that we obliterated with the B-2 bombers have been hit so hard that it would take months to get near the nuclear dust,” Trump said. "And we have it under intense satellite surveillance and control. If we see them make a move, even a move for it, we’ll hit them with missiles very hard again.”
Trump encouraged countries reliant on oil through the Strait of Hormuz to “build some delayed courage” and go “take it”.
He also said that the fighting would continue for at least a few more weeks.
“We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong," Trump said.
Oil rose more than 4% and Asian stocks fell after Trump said in his address that the US will continue to hit Iran very hard.
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