Washington, D.C. – US President Donald Trump has said the plan for war against Iran initially “projected four to five weeks,” adding that the US military has the “capacity to last much longer.”
Speaking from the White House on Monday, Trump outlined his administration’s justification for going to war against Iran alongside Israel, saying Iran posed “serious threats” to the United States, even as he again claimed that U.S. attacks on Iran in June of last year led to the “elimination of Iran’s nuclear program.”
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Trump also said Iran’s ballistic missile program was “growing rapidly and dramatically, and this posed a very clear and colossal threat to the United States and our forces stationed abroad.”
“The regime already had missiles capable of reaching Europe and our bases, both home and abroad, and would soon have had missiles capable of reaching our beautiful America,” Trump said, repeating a claim his administration has made repeatedly in the run-up to Saturday’s attack, for which US government officials have provided no evidence.
The remarks were significant, and Trump appeared to back away from claims that Iran posed an immediate threat to the United States. Instead, he characterized the Iranian government as potentially posing a long-term threat.
“The purpose of this rapidly growing missile program was to protect their nuclear weapons development and make it extraordinarily difficult for anyone to stop them from making these highly prohibited nuclear weapons by us,” Trump said.
“An Iranian regime armed with long-range missiles and nuclear weapons would be an intolerable threat to the Middle East, but also to the American people,” Trump said.
“Our own country would be under threat, and it was almost under threat,” Trump said.
Under both U.S. domestic law and international law, attacks on a foreign country must be in response to an immediate threat. Under the US Constitution, only Congress can declare war, while the president can act unilaterally in response to an imminent threat.
Trump has released two video speeches since the United States and Israel began their attacks, including a recorded message released yesterday in which he said Iran had waged a “war against civilization.”
He also predicted there would likely be more deaths of US military personnel after the Pentagon confirmed the first three military members killed in the Middle East on Sunday.
To date, at least 555 people have been killed in Iran, 13 in Lebanon, 10 in Israel, three in the United Arab Emirates and two in Iraq; Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait have each reported one death amid Iranian retaliation in the region.
On Monday, shortly after the Pentagon confirmed the death of a fourth member of the US military, Trump did not give a clear timeline for the operations.
He said: “From the beginning, we projected four to five weeks, but we have the capacity to last much longer.”
Trump added that the military had originally projected four weeks to “end the military leadership” of Iran.
To date, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and several other senior officials, including the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), have been confirmed killed in attacks between the United States and Israel.
“We are way ahead of schedule,” Trump said.
The ‘America First’ War?
Trump spoke shortly after Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth took questions from reporters for the first time since the attacks began.
Hegseth appeared to respond to concerns from Trump’s own Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement about entering a protracted war.
Trump had promised to end American interventionism during his presidential campaign, pledging to focus on domestic needs rather than foreign adventurism.
“This is not Iraq. This is not endless,” Hegseth said.
“This operation is a clear, devastating and decisive mission. Destroy the missile threat, destroy the navy, no nuclear weapons,” he said.
“Israel also has clear missions, for which we are grateful and are capable partners,” he said, without defining Israel’s mission.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long called for the overthrow of Iran’s government.
Hegseth further promised to fight the war “all on our terms, with the highest authorities, without stupid rules of engagement, without nation-building quagmires, without democracy-building exercises, without politically correct wars.”
