US President Donald Trump has reignited debate over the war with Iran after making a series of remarks that appeared to send conflicting messages, simultaneously criticising military intervention while defending it.
During a televised interview with Lara Trump, his daughter-in-law, on Fox News, Trump said that the United States “should not have been in Iran”, drawing comparisons to the Iraq war, which he described as a major mistake. He later justified the US military strikes, claiming they had prevented Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
The contradictions did not stop there. Trump stated that Washington had largely left the Iranian military alone because it was “more moderate” than other factions within the Iranian system. At the same time, he claimed that Iran’s military capabilities had been completely destroyed, saying the Iranian navy was “100 per cent finished” and that the Iranian air force was also “100 per cent finished”.
Trump had previously declared that Iran’s armed forces had been entirely destroyed, prompting critics to accuse him of presenting inconsistent accounts regarding the outcome of the war and the scale of damage inflicted on Iran’s military establishment.
While speaking of progress towards a potential agreement with Tehran, the US president also kept the door open to renewed military action. He warned that if negotiations failed, Washington could be forced to “end it another way”.
Trump’s comments come as US-Iran negotiations over the nuclear programme continue to face obstacles. At the same time, the consequences of the war continue to affect both countries, with official Iranian figures reporting thousands of deaths since the beginning of the American and Israeli attacks on Iran.
