US President Donald Trump on Friday (local time) once again reiterated that Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons and defended that military action was taken against them to save not just the Middle East but also Europe. He was addressing an event at The Villages in Florida.ย
Trump said if Iran is allowed to have nuclear weapons, then it would first use them against Israel and other parts of the Middle East, before attacking Europe. However, the 79-year-old Republican leader also claimed that Iran’s military has been completely ‘decimated’ and their leadership is also gone.
“Because we have to take a little journey down to a beautiful country known as Iran, and we have to make sure that they don’t have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said, adding, “We stopped them with the B2 bombers. If we didn’t do that, they would’ve had a nuclear weapon. Israel, the Middle East, and Europe would have been blown to pieces.”
Trump said negotiations with Iran were not progressing as desired but asserted that the US will not end the conflict early so that it keeps arising in every three years. He also expressed dissatisfaction with latest proposal of Iran to end the conflict that started on February 28, and resulted in the death of its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.ย
According to Trump, Iran has just options left: either it should accept the terms of negotiations or let the conflict get escalated. “There are options. Do we want to go and just blast the hell out of them and finish them forever? Or do we want to try and make a deal. That’s the options,” the US president said over briefing by CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper.
In his Friday’s addressing at The Villages in Florida, Trump also questioned the critics of the war who claimed the US is not winning and described it as “treasonous”. He even drew parallels between US actions in Venezuela and in Iran, calling the former as “one of the greatest military movements in history”.ย
“We’re doing just about as well in Iran,” he said. “But I don’t like talking about it until the jobs are finished.”
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