US President Donald Trump today framed his war with Iran as just the latest step in his yearslong effort to prevent the nation from obtaining a nuclear weapon, calling the conflict “necessary for the safety of America and the security of the free world.”
In an address to the nation, Trump called the war a response to 47 years of violence by Iran and its proxies, invoking the bombing of a Marine barracks nearly 40 years ago and the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000.
“For these terrorists to have nuclear weapons would be an intolerable threat,” he said. “The most violent and thuggish regime on Earth would be free to carry out their campaigns of terror, coercion, conquest and mass murder from behind a nuclear shield.”
Trump also used the opening moments of the speech to criticize his predecessors, claiming that US presidents who came before him should have “handled” the Iranian regime before he took office.
“We don’t have to be there. We don’t need their oil. We don’t need anything they have, but we’re there to help our allies,” Trump said.
President Donald Trump also told Americans tonight that the Iran war is “nearing completion,” as he projected another two to three weeks of involvement.
“Tonight, I’m pleased to say that these core strategic objectives are nearing completion,” Trump said in a primetime address to the nation.
“We’ve done all of it. Their Navy is gone. Their Air Force is gone. Their missiles are just about used up or beaten. Taken together, these actions will cripple Iran military, crush their ability to support terrorist proxies and deny them the ability to build a nuclear bomb. Our armed forces have been extraordinary,” Trump said.
President Donald Trump offered another warning about Iran’s stockpile of ballistic missiles as he sought to explain the war with Iran to the American people.
Those missiles, he warned in an address to the nation, would have soon been able to “reach the American homeland, Europe – virtually any other place on earth.”
Last month, Iran attempted to strike a US-UK base over 2,000 miles off its coast, prompting questions about Tehran’s military capabilities and whether it could hit targets further than previously thought. Trump hinted at that Wednesday evening.
“They wanted to produce as many missiles as possible, and they did with the longest range possible, and they had some weapons that nobody believed they had. We just learned that. We took them out. We took them all out,” he said.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump said that the Strait of Hormuz – a crucial shipping route off the coast of Iran that has remained closed since US strikes in February – will just “open up naturally” when the conflict concludes, painting an optimistic vision of the future as oil prices continue to rise.
“Iran has been essentially decimated – the hard part is done, so it should be easy, and in any event, when this conflict is over, the strait will open up naturally, it will just open up naturally,” Trump said. “They are going to want to be able to sell oil, because that’s all they have to try and rebuild.”
As gas prices hit $4 per gallon for the first time since 2022 earlier this week, the president sought to downplay rising costs Wednesday, saying the strait reopening “will resume the flowing, and the gas prices will rapidly come back down.”
Furthermore, President Donald Trump said that US allies will be responsible for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, urging them to “build up some delayed courage” and lead an operation to retake control of the critical waterway.
“Go to the strait and just take it, protect it, use it for yourselves,” he said during a primetime address. “The hard part is done, so it should be easy.”
Trump’s remarks are the latest sign that he plans to end the war in Iran without regaining control of the strait, which the Iranian regime has effectively shuttered for weeks, sparking a global energy crisis that has pushed oil and gas prices sharply higher.
Despite the rising energy costs, Trump on Wednesday downplayed the impact of the strait’s closure on the US, claiming that the county doesn’t “need” to utilize the strait.
At the same time, he insisted that the shipping lane would “just open up naturally” after the war — despite Iran’s repeated vows to maintain total closure over the waterway responsible for trafficking roughly 20% of the world’s oil.
Though Trump has said that retaking the strait will be “easy,” even the US military has so far been unwilling to attempt to escort oil tankers through the waterway due to the Iranian threat.
“The countries of the world that do receive oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage,” Trump said. “They must cherish it.”
-- Agencies
