Trump says Iran war will end ‘shortly’ as he rips into allies for lacking ‘courage’ on Strait of Hormuz: ‘Just take it’

President Donald Trump claimed near-victory in the Iran war during a low-energy address to the nation in the White House’s Cross Hall on Wednesday night.

The president spoke for less than 20 minutes and did not announce any major developments, including whether ground troops would need to be deployed or who would take over leadership of the country.

Instead, he stated that US military objectives were ‘nearing completion’ and reiterated that Operation Epic Rage would be concluded ‘shortly’.

He also did not say what it was that signaled the end of the conflict; he only said that the conflict would become more intense before it ended.

“We’re going to hit them extremely hard in the next two or three weeks, bring them back to the Stone Age where they belong,” Trump warned.

He challenged US allies to go to the Strait of Hormuz and ‘get it’, declaring that the US did not need oil from ships blocked by Iran since the conflict began in late February.

‘I have a suggestion. No. 1, buy oil from the United States, we have a lot of it, we have a lot of it,” Trump said.

‘And No. 2, create news with some delay – we should have done this before, he should have done with us as we wanted – go to the Bosphorus and get it. Protect it. “Use this for yourself,” he continued.

Trump scolded NATO leaders for their allies’ refusal to help patrol the Strait of Hormuz and threatened to withdraw from the historic military alliance in the past 24 hours.

He said that they could now do this themselves and said, ‘A large part of Iran has been destroyed.’

“The Strait will naturally open,” Trump said. ‘It will open naturally.’

“They’re going to want to be able to sell oil because that’s all they need to do to rebuild,” the president said of Iran. ‘The flow will continue and gas prices will fall rapidly and stock prices will rise rapidly.’

Trump spoke about Americans’ concerns about high gas prices and blamed the spike squarely on the Islamic regime.

‘Many Americans are concerned about seeing the recent increase in gasoline prices here,’ the President said. ‘This short-term increase is entirely the result of the Iranian regime launching unbalanced terrorist attacks against commercial oil tankers in neighboring countries.’

The Iran war helped Trump’s poll numbers plummet to their lowest level ever last month, with his approval rating falling to 42 percent, according to a Daily Mail/JL Partners poll.

When he began to float a possible ceasefire agreement, his numbers quickly rose to 46 percent.

Smoke rises following explosions in parts of Tehran, Iran, during Israeli strikes on Wednesday ahead of President Donald Trump’s address to the nation where he gave an update on the war

Trump did not mention ceasefire talks in his speech tonight.

The Daily Mail’s March poll showed that Americans largely blame Trump, not the Iranian regime, for increases in gas prices.

Before tonight’s remarks, the President had not made a major speech from the White House since the Iran war began last month.

He used part of his speech to once again justify the attacks by pointing to the Islamic regime’s history of violence against Americans, Israelis and its own people.

“This murderous regime recently killed 45,000 of its own people, 45,000 of whom are dead,” Trump said.

‘It would be an unacceptable threat if these terrorists had nuclear weapons,’ he said.

He described Iran as the ‘most violent and rogue regime in the world’ and said they should never hide behind a ‘nuclear shield’.

Trump also complained that he was the only President forced to do something about the regime.

‘This situation has been going on for 47 years and should have been resolved long before I took office,’ he said.

Trump gave the 18-minute speech at Cross Hall, where he made statements following the killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani during his first term in January 2020.

He brought up Soleimani on Wednesday night, calling him the “father of the roadside bomb.”

“If he had lived, we probably would have had a different conversation tonight, but you know what, we’d still be winning and winning big,” Trump said.

As he did in 2020, Trump invited a small audience, including many Cabinet members, to watch his address.

Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who has previously opposed striking Iran, were all there to watch.

This was much more formal than Trump’s late-night video clip, filmed at Mar-a-Lago and posted on Truth Social, to announce a joint US-Israeli attack on Iran on February 28.

He chose to do the same during the first weekend of the war and also reach out to journalists via phone calls.

The Daily Mail caught up with him on March 1 to break the news that he expected the Iran war to last about four weeks.

‘This has always been a four-week process,’ he said.

The deadline has since been extended.

The conflict reached its lunar limit on Saturday.

Although the goals had changed within a month, Trump was unlikely to announce anything other than victory in the war.

While Trump initially promised Iranian protesters that “help is on the way,” this suggested he would make moves to get rid of the oppressive Islamic regime that took over the country after the 1979 Iranian revolution.

A huge cloud of smoke rises from a building in Tehran, Iran, earlier this week

Iranian Red Crescent workers gathered near an apartment building that was hit in an airstrike in Tehran, Iran, on Monday

While US and Israeli airstrikes have ousted Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei – Iranian leaders have replaced Khamenei with his son, who is not seen in public – it does not appear that American military intervention will easily pave the way to an elected democracy.

Yet Trump boasts of achieving some form of ‘regime change’.

‘We overthrew a regime. We overthrew the second regime. We have a very, very different group of people now. “They’re a lot more reasonable, I think they’re a lot more, a lot less radical,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Tuesday.

He made similar claims on Wednesday.

‘Iran’s New Regime President, much less Radicalized and much smarter than his predecessors, has requested a ceasefire from the United States!’ He shared a post on Truth Social Çarşamba before his address.

‘We will evaluate the Strait of Hormuz when it is open, free and clear. By then we will return Iran to oblivion, or as they say, back to the Stone Age!!!’ The President added.

Iranian officials continue to deny that they are engaged in negotiations with Iran, including a ceasefire request.

Trump also made contradictory statements about Iran’s nuclear threat.

Images seen following a drone attack on a residential building in Tehran on Tuesday, where a civilian was killed

Last June, after the completion of Operation Midnight Hammer, he stood in a different spot in the White House’s Cross Hall and said the nuclear facilities had been “destroyed.”

As he launched the epic Operation Rage, he said he did so to stop Iran’s nuclear threat and ensure the Islamic Regime would never acquire nuclear weapons.

On Wednesday, Trump played down Iran’s nuclear threat in an interview with Reuters.

He said Iran’s uranium is enriched to up to 60 percent purity, meaning it can be quickly converted into weapons-grade uranium.

“This place is so underground, I don’t care about it,” he told Reuters.

He said the country was now ‘incapable’ of developing nuclear weapons and added, “We will always monitor this from satellite.”

As for the Strait of Hormuz, he made it clear that this was someone else’s problem, even before he gave his address.