At At 9 p.m. local time on Wednesday evening, the US president appeared in front of a camera that broadcast his speech live to millions of Americans and people around the world. “It all worked,” Trump said, and listed what Iran's military capabilities were destroyed because he went as far as “no other president has ever been willing to go.”
However, he then announced the continuation of the conflict, contradicting himself. “In the next two to three weeks we will take them back to the stone agewhere they belong,” said the president, expressing his most drastic threat to date.
This indicates that it is approaching massive military escalation. The war with Iran will now enter its decisive phase.
Talking about the need to continue the war, Trump denied the entire first part of his speech, which was full of reports of success.
He spoke of “quick, decisive and overwhelming victories.” Iran's navy was “liquidated”, its air force was “ruined”, its leaders were “killed”, its missile capabilities were “limited”, and its weapons factories were “destroyed”.
According to Trump, this will prevent the Iranian regime from building a nuclear bomb. We are therefore “one step away from achieving strategic goals”, which will happen “soon”. Moreover, he reassured the public by announcing that gasoline prices would soon “fall sharply” and the stock market would “rise sharply.”
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However, in the last part of his speech, Trump made a sharp communication U-turn and contradicted his previous narrative that the war was coming to an end. He said that “we will continue to take action until our goals are fully achieved.” He did not specify how long it would take, saying only “two to three weeks.”
Trump has repeatedly set this deadline in the past in other conflicts as a breakthrough or deadline, but has never met it. As part of his efforts to mediate peace between Ukraine and Russia, he repeatedly announced that he would toughen his stance against Vladimir Putin within two weeks — which never happened.
Trump originally estimated that the war with Iran would last four to six weeks. By adding another two to three, he would exceed that deadline. The threat to take the country “back to the Stone Age” contradicts the narrative presented at the beginning of the speech that we are in the final stages of war.
Americans are negotiating an agreement
At the same time, Trump suggested that he still wants to negotiate an agreement with Tehran. At least he repeated, in case such an agreement fails, his threat to attack Iran's power plants and oil infrastructure.
He already threatened the regime with this on Monday, March 30 – but with the additional threat of also targeting drinking water desalination plants. He didn't repeat it on Wednesday.
The reason for the threat was also different at the beginning of the week. He said then that this would happen if Tehran did not open the Strait of Hormuz “immediately.” Trump has now strayed from that goal. The United States is independent from the Middle East and has enough oil, he announced, before criticizing Europe.
“Buy from the US, be brave and get your own oil,” Trump repeated his statement from Monday's post on Truth Social.
In that post, he already suggested that he might leave the opening of the Strait of Hormuz to other countries. “You must learn to fight for yourself,” he wrote. “The United States will not be there for you, just as you were not there for us.”
It was, among other things, Chancellor Friedrich Merz's change of course that angered Trump. While at the beginning of the war with Iran, the Chancellor assured that he was acting in consultation with the US President, a few days later he changed his mind and declared that the war was not a NATO matter and advised against starting it.
“Germany, as the largest economic power in Europe, protected by the majority of American soldiers, currently fails to see how angry Americans are at a government that claims to support the US and then refuses to support it,” former US ambassador to Berlin, Richard Grenell, recently said in an interview with Die Welt.
In addition to opening the Strait of Hormuz, Trump also abandoned two other goals. “Regime change was never our goal,” he said, contradicting his first video message at the beginning of the war. In it, he promised freedom to the Iranian nation and creation of conditions for them to take power.
Also, securing approximately 400 kg of highly enriched uranium, which Iran still has despite the military attacks on its nuclear facility carried out in June last year, is no longer a US goal.
It's buried so deep underground that it would take Tehran months to access it, Trump said, threatening: “If they start digging, we'll hit them with missiles,” as he could tell from satellite imagery. In this way, Trump also announced further escalation on this issue – which may last much longer.
I’m Ashley Davis as an editor, I’m committed to upholding the highest standards of integrity and accuracy in every piece we publish. My work is driven by curiosity, a passion for truth, and a belief that journalism plays a crucial role in shaping public discourse. I strive to tell stories that not only inform but also inspire action and conversation.
