United States President Donald Trump said on Tuesday, March 10, that he expects the war with Iran to end soon. He stressed that the conflict with the Iranian regime would not end this week and indicated that Operation Epic Fury was running ahead of schedule.
But while Trump has hinted that the war may be short-lived, his advisers have reportedly urged him to chart a path to an exit, warning that a prolonged campaign could provoke a political backlash.
Earlier on Monday, March 9, Trump said the war against Iran could be short-lived, but left open the possibility of an escalation of fighting if global oil supplies are disrupted by the Islamic Republic.
“We made a little excursion” to the Middle East, “to get rid of some evil. And I think you will see that it will be a short excursion,” he said; he later posted on Truth Social that if Iran “does anything to stop the flow of oil in the Strait of Hormuz, the United States will hit it TWENTY TIMES HARDER than it has been hit so far.”
On the election of the new supreme leader, Donald Trump said he was disappointed, saying: “We want a system that can lead to many years of peace, and if we can’t have it, we can get it over with.
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According to The Wall Street Journal, some Trump administration officials have said that withdrawing the US from the conflict would be difficult if Iran continues to attack countries in the region and Israel continues to strike Iranian targets.
Earlier, Secretary of State Marco Rubio also said that Israel’s strikes on Iran were the reason why America proceeded to send a barrage of missiles at Iran. The US believed that if Israel attacked Iran, it would be returned as an “attack against US forces”.
“We knew there was going to be an Israeli action. And we knew that if we didn’t go after them preemptively before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” he said, adding, “We believed they would be attacked, that they would go after us immediately, and we wouldn’t sit there and absorb the blow.”
President Donald Trump warned on Monday that the United States is prepared to continue striking Iranian positions if Tehran continues to disrupt oil supplies through the Strait of Hormuz, a key global energy route.
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A senior administration official also said that Donald Trump will not stop fighting until he can achieve a satisfactory victory.
But people familiar with the matter said Trump’s advisers recently advised him to map out a plan to exit the conflict. They believed that a longer war, now in its 10th day, would erode the support enjoyed by the US president. According to a recent poll, up to 53% of American voters oppose military action against Iran.
Some Trump advisers also pointed to the looming medium-term horizons and oil prices at record highs.
“When the price of gas and oil goes up, so does everything else. Given that affordability has already been an issue, it leads to real challenges,” said Stephen Moore, an outside economic adviser to Trump, according to the WSJ.
