US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the war with Iran is progressing “very quickly”, after Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, promised in his first public message to avenge US and Israeli attacks on the Islamic Republic, writes AFP.
“The situation with Iran is evolving very quickly. Everything is going very well, our military is unmatched,” said the American leader at the White House.
Iran “is truly a nation of terror and hatred, and today they are paying a very high price for that,” added the US president, during an event with US first lady Melania Trump.
In recent days, Donald Trump has sent conflicting signals about the evolution of the war, which began on February 28 with the Israeli-American attacks on Iran, and the conflict then spread throughout the region.
He claimed on Wednesday that the United States had “won” the war against Iran and that the conflict could end “very soon”, but insisted on the need for the fighting to continue. “You never want to say too soon that you won. We won,” Trump said at a campaign rally in Hebron, Kentucky. “In the first hour, everything was over,” the White House leader said.
So far, the US president has not directly responded to the first message from Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who vowed on Thursday to retaliate against US-Israeli attacks, to maintain pressure on the Strait of Hormuz and to further target US military bases in the Middle East region.
Oil prices rose again on Thursday following the near-total shutdown of traffic on this strategic sea route – the Strait of Hormuz, de facto controlled by Iran and through which about 20% of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports are delivered.
But Trump said earlier on Thursday in a message posted online that it was “much more important” to him to prevent the “evil empire” of Iran from getting nuclear weapons than worrying about rising oil prices because of the Middle East war.
“The United States is by far the largest producer of oil in the world, so when the price of oil goes up, we make a lot of money. BUT, to me as president, it is far more important and interesting to prevent an evil empire, Iran, from getting nuclear weapons and destroying the Middle East, and indeed the entire world. I will never allow that to happen! Thank you for your attention to this matter,” he wrote Trump, in the message on his social network, Truth Social.
