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US President Donald Trump indicated on Monday that the war in the Middle East could end soon – although not this week, he clarified – as the hardliners pledged loyalty to their Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei in a sign that they are not ready to back down anytime soon.
But minutes later, in remarks at a news conference in Doral, Fla., Trump suggested that things could get worse in the region, as he threatened to escalate the attack if Iran made any attempt to disrupt the world’s oil supply.
The conflicting signals sent markets on a rollercoaster, with oil prices rising and stock markets fluctuating before turning in the opposite direction after Trump’s comments and reports that he eased sanctions on Russia.
Trump said the war would continue until Iran was “totally defeated,” but predicted that would be soon.
“It’s going to be over quickly,” he said in an earlier speech to Republican lawmakers, and to Doral. “We have won in many ways but we have not won enough,” he said.
Oil prices rose to $120 US a barrel on Monday as the US-Israel war against Iran entered its 10th day. Most oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz have been suspended due to the threat of missile and drone attacks and strikes at oil and gas facilities have exacerbated supply concerns.
‘It’s all blown up’: Trump
Later, in his first official press conference since the US and Israel launched their attack on Feb. 28, he told the media that Iran no longer has a navy, an air force, or anti-aircraft missiles.
“Everything was blown up,” he said. “They don’t have radar, they don’t have communications and they don’t have leadership.”
“If we take Trump at his word, which is really difficult because, frankly, everywhere and constantly changing, he makes it sound like the missiles are gone,” Bessma Momani, a colleague at the NATO Defense College, told CBC’s. Power and Politics.
“It is not clear how much they still have in their arsenal,” he said. “Of course there have been many attacks in neighboring countries using drones, so there is nothing complicated there.”
But Momani said he finds the argument that Iran’s nuclear power has been re-established in the months since the US said it had “destroyed” it last June “really interesting.”
Director of the Stimson Center’s Middle East program Randa Slim and NATO Defense College fellow Bessma Momani discuss how Iran’s selection of the late supreme leader’s son as his successor speaks volumes about how it approaches war, whether it will seek revenge and how far it is from returning to the negotiating table.
The new supreme leader
On Sunday, Khamenei, 56, was named as the successor to his father, who was killed on the first day of the attack on Iran.
Trump said the Shia cleric was unacceptable and demanded that Iran surrender unconditionally.
Iranian media showed large crowds in several cities rallying behind the new leader, waving Iranian flags and holding portraits of his father Ali Khamenei.
However, in the absence of humility, Trump did not explain what victory in the war would look like.
Israel says its goal is to overthrow Iran’s system of clerical rule. US officials say Washington’s goal is to destroy Iran’s missile capabilities and nuclear program, but Trump has said the war can only end with a law-abiding Iranian government.
Randa Slim, director of the Middle East program at the Stimson Center, a think tank based in Washington, believes that other factors – including the weakest support for the war among the American people and high gas prices that may lead to inflation – will begin to influence Trump’s decision.
“He is thinking about his political fortune and that of his party as we go into the mid-term elections in November,” he said. Power and Politics. “And in my opinion, they will play a big role in determining his decision to end this.”
Trump says Iran may have blown up the school
Trump also said on Monday that Iran has access to the American Tomahawk cruise missile. This was the weapon that may have been used at a girls’ school in Iran, which state television says killed 165 people, most of them children.
Asked if the US would accept responsibility for the strike, Trump said the cruise missile, made by US defense contractor Raytheon, is “sold and used by other countries” and that Iran “has some Tomahawks.”
“Whether it’s Iran or somebody else,” he said, “the Tomahawk is very common.”
While Raytheon has sold the missile to allied countries such as Japan and Australia, there is no evidence to suggest that Iran has gotten its hands on a cruise missile.
When asked why he was the only person carrying his claim, Trump replied: “Because I don’t know enough about it.”
He added that “whatever the report shows, I am willing to live with that report.”
