President Donald Trump did not rule out sending US troops to Iran, but pledged to do so only for a “very good reason” – against a virtually obliterated opponent.
Trump initially said he didn’t want to answer the question, as he flew back to Florida Saturday from Dover Air Force Base on Air Force One.
“Could there be? Possibly for a very good reason,” Trump said when asked about American boots on the ground in Iran.
“And I would say if we ever did that, they would be so decimated that they wouldn’t be able to fight at the ground level.”
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Trump also didn’t rule out using such a force to deal with securing Iranian nuclear material.
“We haven’t talked about it. But it was a total obliteration. They haven’t been able to get to it. And at some point maybe we will. That would be a great thing.”
He called it “something we could do later” if needed.
And as for the length of the mission, Trump was firm.
“Whatever it takes,” he said.
Trump raised the possibility of additional attacks on large numbers of Iranian military personnel – after firing off a cryptic post Saturday morning mentioning the idea of going after additional “areas and groups of people.”
“The military is almost non-existent. If you look, we could hit the military itself very hard, but maybe we will, maybe we won’t. We haven’t made that determination.”
“We’ve wiped out their navy, 44 ships. We’ve wiped out their air force, every plane. We’ve wiped out most of their missiles … We’ve also hit their manufacturing areas where they make the missiles very hard. Their drone capacity is way down.
“And we’ve hurt ‘em where it hurts, including about every form of leadership you can have we’ve wiped out,” he said.
“We’re winning the war by a lot,” the president said, adding, “We decimated their whole evil empire. It’ll continue I’m sure for a little while.”
Trump also fielded questions about an explosive report that Russia was supplying information to Iran – with whom it has close ties – about the location of US assets that Iran could target. He said he had “no indication whatsoever.”
“We don’t know, but it’s not doing very well. If they are, it’s not helping much,” Trump said, brushing off a potential concern.
“I hope they’re not,” added Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who was traveling with the president and who has also been co-leading talks with Moscow on its war with Ukraine.
Trump shared the argument that Moscow might make if pressed about targeting Americans.
“They’d say we do it against them, wouldn’t they?” said Trump, referencing US assistance to Ukraine following the Russian invasion.
Trump said any assist from Moscow won’t work.
“I don’t know. Look, they can give all the information that they want, but the people they’re sending it to are overwhelmed.”
On a day when Iran launched another flurry of drones and missiles at US allies, Trump was upbeat.
“We hit the manufacturing very hard. They’re at about 9% of what they sent out in the first two days. We think that’s because they don’t have that much. And also, we’ve knocked out about 70% of the rocket – of the launchers. The launchers are a big deal, very hard to get, very expensive,” Trump said.
He also commented again on Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s apology to Arab neighbors it had fired upon, although the United Arab Emirates came under repeated fire Saturday.
“All of a sudden they apologize to the Middle Eastern states that they shot at them. I was very surprised to see they did that. You mark that down as a victory for us … I guess they’re not going to be shooting at them any more, they apologized… That’s a surrender right there.”
He reiterated his demand for “unconditional surrender” from Iran.
“It’s where they cry uncle or when they can’t fight any longer there’s nobody around to cry uncle,” he said.
But he spoke against arming Kurdish forces who could serve as potential ground troops.
“We don’t want to make the war any more complex than it already is,” he said.
Trump also reflected on the nature of war, after marking the first American deaths in the conflict at Dover.
“It’s a sad part of war. It’s the bad part of war,” he said.
