In major speech, Trump says Iran war will be over ‘shortly’ but offers little clarity
WASHINGTON— In his first official address to the nation since launching war on Iran more than a month ago, President Trump repeated a familiar list of claimed accomplishments and brushed aside the disruptions caused by the war while providing little clarity on the clear path to ending a conflict that he said would end “shortly.”
“We will get the job done, and we will get it done very quickly. We are getting very close,” the president said from the White House.
Trump said Iran was “no longer a threat” but spoke of potentially needing to step up bombings of Iran’s energy and other infrastructure if it continues to fight back, and signaled a willingness to escalate the conflict if necessary.
“If no agreement is made in the meantime, we will keep our eyes on key targets,” he said. “If there is no deal, we will hit every single one of their power generation facilities very hard, and probably at the same time. We didn’t hit their oil, even though it was the easiest target, because that wouldn’t give them a chance to survive or rebuild. But we could hit it, and it would be destroyed, and there’s nothing they can do about it.”
Trump said this week that he expects to withdraw American forces from Iran within three weeks and stressed that the United States does not need to be in the Middle East but is only there to “help our allies.” Trump did not set a specific timeline for his exit strategy and instead focused on the military operation, which he described as a “decisive, overwhelming victory.”
“We have all the cards, they have none,” he said. “It is very important that we keep this conflict in perspective.”
This was Trump’s first official address to the nation since the United States and Israel launched a military attack on Iran on February 28; but Trump has spoken extensively about the war at public events. The speech was an important messaging moment for the president, who has sought to clearly explain the scope and goals of the conflict that has killed hundreds of people in Iran and neighboring countries and disrupted global markets 33 days after the war began.
Trump has repeatedly insisted that the United States is in good shape, “very well positioned for the future,” and does not need the oil that Iran is strangling in the Strait of Hormuz; ignored the obvious consequences of the war and the disruption of oil on the United States through this channel, including gas prices.
But the conflict has begun to reveal cracks among some of his supporters. Some expressed disappointment with the administration’s decision to enter a new conflict in the Middle East; These concerns could become a political liability for Republicans ahead of high-stakes midterm elections in November.
In his speech, Trump appeared to address his critics for straying from his campaign promises by going to war, vowing “from the first day I announced my presidential campaign in 2015” that he would never allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.
Trump has repeatedly downplayed the economic strain the war is placing on Americans, including rising gas prices, arguing that short-term financial hardship is necessary for national security. He also promised that gas prices would “come down” once the conflict was over.
Trump repeated on Wednesday: “Gas prices will drop rapidly.” “Stock prices are going to rise rapidly. They haven’t fallen much. Frankly, they’ve fallen a little bit, but they’ve had a great time.”
Before the nationally televised speech, most of the president’s messages came from less formal settings. Trump has consistently struck an optimistic tone regarding the war, while offering varying and sometimes vague statements about what his administration aims to achieve or how long and what it will take to achieve those goals.
These inconsistencies were clearly visible even hours before the address. In an interview with ReutersHe said he was not concerned about the enriched uranium that Tehran had; This statement seemed to refute the main justification for the war: preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
“This is so underground, I don’t care about it,” he told Reuters, adding that the US military would “monitor this by satellite.”
In public statements before the speech, Trump said the war was launched to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, but also that the United States had completely destroyed Iran’s nuclear capabilities months ago in separate attacks during the summer. He also said he was concerned about Iran’s enriched uranium, wanted the United States to buy it, and might even consider sending U.S. forces to Iran to collect that uranium.
There were also mixed messages about whether one of the goals of the war was to achieve regime change. The first US-Israeli-led strikes killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the leadership vacuum was filled by his son Mujtaba Khamenei, a 56-year-old hard-line religious cleric whom Trump initially called “an unacceptable choice.”
While Iran’s religious rulers maintain tight control over the country, Trump administration officials such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio have argued that U.S. war aims have “nothing to do” with Iran’s leadership. But Trump has repeatedly talked about how “regime change” was achieved in recent days.
On Wednesday, Trump said a deal could be reached. He suggested that the US and Iran had been actively negotiating in recent days and claimed that Iranian officials were “begging” for an end to the war. But Iranian officials have repeatedly rejected that characterization, although they acknowledged indirect talks through intermediaries and suggested the United States was trying to find a way out of the conflict.
At the same time, Trump argued that a deal could be reached because the United States had effectively “destroyed” the Iranian military. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth acknowledged Tuesday that Iran maintains the ability to launch offensive missiles.
On Wednesday, Trump said Iran’s “ability to launch missiles and drones has been significantly curtailed, its weapons factories have been dismantled.” “There are very few left,” he said.
Hours before Trump was due to deliver his speech, Rubio released a video in which he began by saying, “Many Americans are asking: ‘Why did the United States have to attack Iran now?'” This is a clear admission that Trump’s answers to that question have not resonated.
Rubio also offered another justification for the administration’s on-and-off war over the past month: Iran is building an arsenal of missiles and drones to protect its nuclear ambitions, he said, and the war is the “last best chance” for the United States to eliminate those weapons capabilities before it’s too late.
“We were on the verge of an Iran with so many missiles and so many drones that no one could do anything about its future nuclear weapons program,” Rubio said. “This was an unacceptable risk.”
Others also tried to frame the war narrative on Wednesday.
Before Trump’s speech, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian released a public letter denouncing what he described as a “flood of distortions and manufactured narratives” from the United States and arguing that Iran was not a threat and was merely defending itself against U.S. aggression.
He called on the American people to “look beyond the disinformation machinery” of the Trump administration and come to their own conclusions about the war and its purpose, at one point echoing a question some of Trump’s base also asked: “Is ‘America First’ really among the priorities of the US government today?”
Pezeshkian wrote that “the Iranian people have no hostility towards other nations, including the United States” and that the claim that Iran is a threat to the United States is “a product of the political and economic whims of the powerful – the need to manufacture an enemy to justify repression, maintain military dominance, maintain the arms industry, and control strategic markets.”
The US stated that Iran was in the middle of nuclear negotiations with the US when it attacked Iran “as a proxy for Israel” and accused US leaders of committing a “war crime” by targeting Iran’s energy and industrial facilities.
“Exactly what interests of the American people does this war serve?” he asked.
