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 the war with Iran began more than a month ago, President Trump on Wednesday evening repeated a familiar list of claimed successes — and brushed off setbacks — while providing little clarity on the path forward to ending the conflict.

“We’re going to finish the job, and we’re going to finish it very quickly. We’re getting very close,” the president said from the White House.

Trump said Iran was “no longer a threat,” but he cited the potential need for an escalation of the conflict and increased bombing of Iran’s energy and oil infrastructure if it continues to retaliate.

“If there is no deal, we are going to hit every one of their power plants, very hard and probably simultaneously,” he said. “We didn’t hit their oil, even though it’s the easiest target of all, because that wouldn’t give them even a small chance of survival or rebuilding. But we could hit it, and it would disappear, and there was nothing they could do about it.”

Trump said earlier this week that he planned to withdraw U.S. forces from Iran within three weeks, and stressed that the United States did not have to be in the Middle East but was there only to “help our allies.”

In his speech, Trump did not set a specific timetable for an exit strategy, but said the United States was “on track to achieve all of America’s military objectives shortly, very soon.”

“We’re going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We’re going to take them back to the Stone Age, where they belong,” he said. “In the meantime, discussions are ongoing.”

He also reiterated his claims, made for weeks, that the United States has already defeated Iran and won the war, which he called a “decisive and overwhelming victory.”

He also stressed that it is “very important that we keep this conflict in perspective,” before listing – by month and day – the duration of World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Iraq War.

Before Wednesday night’s official speech, Trump had spoken about the war — which the United States and Israel launched against Iran on Feb. 28 — only in less formal settings, at media rallies and other public events.

The speech was a key moment for the president who, 33 days into the war, has struggled to clearly explain the scope and goals of a conflict that has killed thousands in Iran and neighboring countries and disrupted global markets.

Trump has repeatedly insisted that the United States is doing well, is “in great shape for the future” and does not need the oil that Iran has brought under control in the Strait of Hormuz, ignoring the obvious effects of the war and these disruptions on the United States, including on gas prices.

These effects are already contributing to fractures within Trump’s base. Some have expressed frustration with the administration’s decision to enter a new conflict in the Middle East, concerns that could become a political liability for Republicans as high-stakes midterm elections approach in November.

In his remarks, Trump appeared to address those who criticize him for deviating from his campaign promises by going to war, saying he had promised to never allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons “from day one” when he announced his first presidential campaign in 2015.

Trump has repeatedly downplayed the economic strain the war has put on Americans, including rising gas prices, arguing that short-term financial stress is necessary for national security. He also promised that gas prices would “fall” once the conflict ends.

“Gas prices will come down quickly,” Trump repeated Wednesday. “Stock prices are going to come back up quickly. They haven’t gone down much. Frankly, they’re down a little bit, but they’ve had some really good days.”

Trump appeared less forceful during his evening speech than at some of his previous daytime events, where he consistently maintained an optimistic tone about the war, while offering inconsistent accounts of what his administration aimed to achieve, or how long and what it would take to achieve those goals.

These inconsistencies were evident even hours before the speech. In an interview with Reuters, he said he was not concerned about enriched uranium held by Tehran – a statement that appeared to undermine a central justification for the war.

“It’s underground so far, I don’t care,” Trump said, adding that the U.S. military would “monitor it by satellite.”

In public remarks before his speech, Trump said the war was launched to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, but also that the United States had completely wiped out Iran’s nuclear capabilities months before in separate attacks over the summer. He also said he was worried about Iran’s enriched uranium, wanted the United States to take it, and would even consider sending U.S. forces to Iran to retrieve it.

There have also been conflicting messages about U.S. intentions regarding Iranian leadership since Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed early in the conflict, leaving a leadership vacuum filled by his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, a 56-year-old hardline cleric whom Trump initially called an “unacceptable choice.”

While Iran’s clerical leaders maintained a firm grip on the country, Trump administration officials such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio maintained that U.S. war goals had “nothing to do” with Iranian leadership. But in recent days, Trump has spoken repeatedly about how “regime change” was achieved.

On Wednesday, Trump said a deal remained within reach with Iran’s new leaders, whom he called “less radical and much more reasonable.”

Hours before Trump delivered 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?’ “” — an apparent acknowledgment that Trump’s own responses to this question in recent days may not have resonated.

Rubio also offered another justification for war that the administration has brought up from time to time over the past month, saying that Iran was building an arsenal of missiles and drones to protect its nuclear ambitions, and that war was the “last best chance” for the United States to eliminate those military capabilities before it was too late.

“We were on the verge of an Iran with so many missiles and drones that no one could do anything about its nuclear weapons program in the future,” Rubio said. “It was an intolerable risk.”

Others also tried to frame the war narrative Wednesday.

Before Trump’s speech, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian issued a public letter denouncing what he described as “a flood of distortions and fabricated narratives” from the United States, and asserting that Iran is not a threat and has only defended itself against American aggression.

He called on the American people to “look beyond the disinformation machinery” of the Trump administration and draw their own conclusions about the war and its goals, echoing a question also asked by some in Trump’s base: “Is America First really among the priorities of the U.S. government today?”

He noted that Iran was in the middle of a nuclear negotiation with the United States when the United States attacked it “as a proxy for Israel,” and accused American leaders of committing a “war crime” by targeting Iran’s energy and industrial facilities.

“What interests of the American people are really served by this war? he asked.