President Trump claims plans to take Iran ‘back to the Stone Age’
President Trump gave a national address on the Iran war, threatening to take Iran “back to the Stone Age, where they belong.”
Thirty-three days into the war with Iran, President Donald Trump declared victory at hand. largely.
In a prime-time address from the White House, President Trump praised what he called a “swift, decisive and overwhelming victory on the battlefield.” The victory was so decisive that he suggested that a few more weeks of military offensives could end the war and “return them to their proper Stone Age.”
“We are on track to achieve all of America’s military goals very soon,” he said.
But he made it clear that he was prepared to leave the messy and problematic situation alone.
The 19-minute speech included no new details about the course of the war and only briefly mentioned the possibility of a negotiated settlement.
But he also did not mention the possibility of escalating the war by deploying the thousands of U.S. ground troops currently massed in the region. And he revised what he had described as the fundamental goal of gaining control of the highly enriched uranium currently buried on Iranian territory as a step he no longer considered necessary.
He said the sites are under “intensive satellite monitoring and control” and that any attempt by Iran to retake them could result in U.S. forces returning to the area. (Of course, that surveillance has been going on for years, long before the war began.)
The president is anxious to end the war and soon
He also said he would leave it to other countries to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which is currently under Iranian control and is pushing up energy prices. Countries that are more dependent than the United States on oil shipped through this route should “belatedly muster up the courage” and “just take it, protect it, and use it for themselves,” he urged.
Moreover, he predicted that the strait would “open up on its own” once the war ended.
All of this shows that the president is anxious to end this war soon.
There was speculation before the speech that Trump would announce an end to the war or an escalation of the war. Both theories are based on contradictory comments he made about what the essential goal was.
In a social media post on Wednesday, the president said the United States would not consider a ceasefire until the Strait of Hormuz is open and free, vowing to “blast Iran into oblivion” until that happens.
But in an interview with Reuters also on Wednesday, he said the United States believed the war would end “quite quickly” and could return for “spot strikes” if necessary.
As it turns out, this speech was more like a Reuters interview than an X post.
Skeptical audiences and unpopular wars
Trump was addressing a skeptical American public.
A CNN poll conducted March 26-30 found that only a third of those surveyed supported the decision to launch an attack on Iran, and that support has eroded since the war began. Two-thirds of respondents in the Reuters/Ipsos poll said the United States should end the conflict quickly, even if all goals are not achieved. That included four out of 10 Republicans.
President Trump’s overall job approval rating has fallen to 36% in an Ipsos poll and 35% in a CNN poll, as Republicans worry that the Iran war is upsetting an already difficult political landscape ahead of November’s midterm congressional elections.
Meanwhile, the war continues.
Bombs were dropped on Tehran on Wednesday, sending plumes of smoke over the capital. Iranian missiles hit some locations in Israel where many Jews were celebrating the first night of Passover. Israel launched an attack on Lebanon and Iran launched a missile at the United Arab Emirates.
U.S. Central Command has updated the number of targets struck by U.S. forces in Iran during the war to 12,300. so far.
