WASHINGTON: In an address to the nation that echoed his previous statements, President Donald Trump claimed the United States’ core strategic objectives on the war on Iran are nearing completion.
Trump’s speech came hours after he claimed Iran had asked for a ceasefire, a claim Tehran denied.
In his brief remarks, the US president made four familiar points: The war is necessary; it has been already won; it must continue; and it will wrap up soon – all arguments he has been making daily.
Despite the glowing report he gave about the progress of the war, Trump appeared to extend the timeline of the conflict.
“Over the next two to three weeks, we’re going to bring them back to the stone ages, where they belong,” he said.
At the outset of the war, the White House had said that the fighting would go on for four to six weeks, and we are in the middle of the fifth week.
The US president did not provide details on how the war would actually end or what kind of deal he is seeking with Iran.
On the energy crisis and Hormuz, Trump acknowledged the high petrol prices but he did not communicate to the US public how he plans to resolved the closure of the strait beyond repeating his calls for other countries to “just take it”.
Trump touted “overwhelming victories”, but with Iran still in control of Hormuz and able to fire drone and missiles at Israel and the entire region, officials in Tehran are also claiming they are winning.
Public opinion polls have shown that a strong majority of Americans oppose the conflict. Tonight, Trump tried to convince them with the same talking points that have failed to rally the public around the war over the past month.
TRUMP AGAIN SAID WAR WILL CONTINUE FOR AT LEAST ANOTHER FEW WEEKS
Everything that we heard from the US president was obviously very significant, but Trump reiterated what we’d already heard from him over the last few days – that this war was going to continue for at least another few weeks.
Trump said the US had had swift and overwhelming victories, that it’s getting very close to the final victory – and set a timescale of somewhere in the region of two to three weeks for that to be carried out.
Trump himself had said that he was going to be highly critical of NATO. There was some talk of how the allies should now move in and take control of the Strait of Hormuz, but there was no mention of NATO specifically.
He said many of the strategic goals have been achieved, and over the next couple of weeks, the US forces were going to continue their bombing.
In fact, he said they were going to bomb Iran back to the Dark Ages.
He also made the point that he was going to start attacking Iran’s energy infrastructure if they didn’t come up with a deal.
TRUMP SAYS US WILL ‘HIT IRAN EXTREMELY HARD’ OVER NEXT 2-3 WEEKS
“We will continue until our objectives are fully achieved. Thanks to the progress we’ve made, I can say we are on track to complete all of America’s objectives shortly, very shortly,” the US president says.
“We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We are going to take them back to the stone ages where they belong,” he says.
He adds that “regime change was never our goal” but that “regime change has occurred because of their original leader’s death”.
He’s also warns Iran of strikes on power plants if no deal is agreed.
“If during this period of time no deal is made, we have our eyes on key targets. If no deal is reached, we are going to hit every one of their electric generating plants very hard, and probably simultaneously,” he says.