Washington: US President Donald Trump has said the war with Iran would end soon, asserting that American forces had crippled Tehran’s military capabilities, were monitoring its nuclear sites and controlled the Strait of Hormuz.
“As soon as we win, which will not be long,” President Trump said in an interview with GB News, when asked about public support for the conflict. “We’ve already won because they can’t have a nuclear weapon.”
President Trump said the United States had entered the conflict to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
“Now we have a war with Iran, and that one’s for a different reason, because we’re not going to let them have a nuclear weapon,” he said.
President Trump claimed Iran had been between two and four weeks away from obtaining a nuclear weapon before the United States attacked three nuclear sites. He described those facilities as “obliterated”.
The President said Washington was using its space capabilities to monitor those sites and another location he identified as Pickax Mountain.
“We know everybody that walks in and walks out,” President Trump said. “You can literally from space read their name tag.”
He said nuclear material at the three sites was now buried beneath “millions of tons of mountain” and would be difficult to recover.
President Trump also issued a warning to Europe, arguing that an Iranian nuclear weapon would pose a more immediate danger to the continent.
“I’m saving your country from the threat, too, because if Iran had a nuclear weapon, they’re more likely to use it in Europe, where they do have missile capability than they are to America, where they don’t,” he told British interviewer Bev Turner.
President Trump claimed the United States had defeated Iran’s navy and air force and had recently struck its radar installations.
“We control the Hormuz Strait,” he said. “We have great control over the Hormuz Strait we’re taking out 30, 40 boats a night, and a lot of oil is coming out of there.”
He said Iran’s economy was collapsing and inflation could be as high as 300 per cent. The President offered no supporting evidence for those figures during the interview.
Trump also defended the conflict as he acknowledged the need to explain its purpose to American voters. “I did the right thing,” he said. “And I think the American people, you know, they were very much against my going into Venezuela, then I went in and won and now everybody’s saying what a great deal it was.”
He argued that the damage inflicted on Iran’s nuclear programme would last for decades. “If we left Iran today, it would take them 25 years to rebuild it,” President Trump said. “But we’re not going to do that.”
The Strait of Hormuz is a critical maritime route for global energy supplies. President Trump criticised NATO countries, including Britain, for not assisting the United States there despite their dependence on oil passing through the waterway.
The President also said Iranian protesters faced severe repression, claiming that 75,000 had been killed. “They tried to rise but when you have somebody with a machine gun or snipers all over the place shooting the people, it’s very hard to rise up,” he said.
(IANS)
