Donald Trump has set four targets in Iran and said the US campaign had been projected to last four to five weeks but could “last much longer than that.”
On Monday, the US president offered his most extensive comments yet on the war, going beyond two video messages and a series of brief telephone interviews with journalists that offered sometimes conflicting objectives.
But Trump undermined the gravity of his comments by abruptly pivoting to tout his plans for a new White House ballroom, boasting that it would be “the most beautiful ballroom in the world,” “under budget” and “ahead of schedule” for “$400 million or less.”
The thud of construction in the ballroom was audible at a Medal of Honor ceremony in the East Room, where the president tried to justify Saturday’s intervention, which killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and mocked criticism that he would probably get “bored” and move on.
Trump said he had ordered the attack on Iran to thwart Tehran’s nuclear development and a ballistic missile program that was “growing rapidly and dramatically” and “presented a very clear and colossal threat to the United States and our forces stationed abroad.”
The president claimed without evidence that Iran “would soon have missiles capable of reaching our beautiful America,” a claim disputed by national security experts. Trump added that other countries supported US efforts to prevent Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, but “they just didn’t have the courage to say it.”
The president then took aim at his predecessor and rival. “I was very proud to have nullified President Barack Hussein Obama’s Iran nuclear deal,” he said. “That was a horrible, horrible, dangerous document. They would have had nuclear weapons three years ago and they would have used them. But I won’t let that happen.”
Trump said the Iranian regime had a history of attacking the United States and killing Americans, including through roadside bombs. “This was our last best opportunity to strike – which we are doing now – and eliminate the intolerable threats posed by this sick and sinister regime.”
He said the goals of the war included destroying Iran’s missile capabilities, annihilating its navy and preventing it from having a nuclear weapon. Trump said a third goal was a long-standing U.S. goal: to prevent Iran from supporting militant groups elsewhere in the region.
The president noted the loss of four U.S. service members in the fighting so far, adding, “In their memory, we continue this mission with a fierce and unwavering determination to crush the threat this terrorist regime poses to the American people.”
Trump continued: “We are already substantially ahead of our time projections, but whatever the moment is, okay, whatever it takes, we will always do it and we have done it from the beginning.
“We project four to five weeks, but we have the capacity to last much longer than that. We will do it… Someone in the media said: I think you’ll get bored after a week or two. No, we don’t get bored. I never get bored, if I got bored, I wouldn’t be here right now. I guarantee it. Going through what I had to go through.”
The ceremony awarded the Medal of Honor to three service members, including Sergeant Michael Ollis, who died in Afghanistan. But it was Trump’s comments in the ballroom that caused a stir on social media.
New Yorker staff writer Susan Glasser posted on
