US President Donald Trump described the ongoing war in Iran as a “short trip” during his speech on Monday at the House Republican Conference in Doral, Florida, CNN, Sky News and The Guardian reported.
“Our country is doing very well. I mean, at a level that no one expected. We took a little trip because we felt we had to do it to get rid of an evil. I think you'll see it's going to be a short-term trip,” the White House leader said.
“How good is our army, isn't it?”, the US president then stated, to the applause of the audience, specifying twice more that this is a “short-term” military operation.
The US president's statements came just a few hours after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth redistributed an image online that read, among other things, that “we have only just begun to fight.”
A senior Iranian official told CNN that Tehran is ready for a long war and signaled that Iran is willing to continue attacks on Persian Gulf countries in an attempt to persuade Trump to take a step back in the conflict.
Trump says “nobody knows” who will eventually lead Iran
During the same Republican conference, Donald Trump said that “no one knows” who will lead Iran after the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, despite the fact that his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, has already been named the new supreme leader of the Islamic Republic.
“Their terrorist leaders are gone or counting the minutes until they are gone,” the US president claimed. “And now, nobody has a clue who are the people who are going to run the country,” he continued.
Trump, who previously dismissed Mojtaba Khamenei as an unacceptable choice to lead Iran, insisted he must play a role in selecting the new leader in Tehran.
Trump also suggested that US and Israeli forces could target Mojtaba Khamenei, telling ABC News over the weekend that “if he doesn't get our approval, he won't last long.”
“One of the most amazing operations ever conducted”
During his speech in Florida, the American president described Operation Epic Fury as “one of the most complex and amazing operations ever conducted.”
He added that he likes the name “even more than (Operation) Midnight Hammer, when we destroyed (Iran's) nuclear potential.”
“It was an important day because if we hadn't done that, (the Iranians) would have had a nuclear weapon in two weeks and I think we would have been in a very different situation,” Trump said.
The leader of the White House has repeatedly stated – without presenting evidence – that Tehran is starting to rebuild the nuclear program that, according to him, was “destroyed” by the US attacks last June, during Operation Midnight Hammer.
He used this accusation as justification for launching joint attacks on Tehran with Israel ten days ago.
“The world respects us now more than it has ever respected us,” Trump said Monday, praising the US military, which he said was “a military second to none.”
Trump claims Iran would attack US 'within a week'
The US president then offered yet another “reason” for the US-Israeli attack on Tehran.
“I'll give you the best reason of all. Within a week, they would have attacked us, 100 percent,” Trump said.
“They were ready. They had all these missiles, a lot more than anyone thought, and they were going to attack us. They were going to attack the whole Middle East and Israel, and if they had a nuclear weapon, they were going to use it against Israel, and that was going to be a major attack,” he continued.
The Guardian notes that Trump has never provided evidence for any of these claims that US and Israeli military action against Iran was “preemptive” in the face of an imminent nuclear threat.
The war, “almost over”
Earlier on Monday, Trump said the war against Iran was “almost over” and that Washington was “way ahead” of the initial four-to-five-week deadline, according to a post on the X social network by a CBS News journalist, which cited a phone interview with the US president.
“I think the war is almost over, basically. They have no navy, no communications, no air force,” Trump said, according to CBS News White House correspondent Weijia Jiang.
In that interview, the US leader added that the US is “way ahead” of the initial estimated four-to-five week timeline for the Iran war.
And of Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, Trump told CBS News that “I have no message for him. Absolutely none.”
Trump has indicated that he has someone in mind to replace Ali Khamenei, but did not provide further details.
