President Trump said on Sunday that the U.S. military intends to sustain its assault on Iran for “four to five weeks” if necessary, insisting that it “won’t be difficult” for Israel and the United States to maintain the intensity of the battle even as he warned of the possibility of more American casualties.
In a brief telephone interview with The New York Times, Mr. Trump offered several seemingly contradictory visions of how power might be transferred to a new government — or even whether the existing Iranian power structure would run that government or be overthrown.
Among the options he suggested was an outcome similar to what he engineered in Venezuela, in which only the top leader was removed during an American military strike and much of the rest of the government remained in place, but newly willing to work pragmatically with the United States.
The assault on Iran is considered far more complex and risky than the operation to capture Nicolás Maduro, who was Venezuela’s leader, in part because Iran’s leadership oversees extensive military abilities and because of deep divides in Iranian society over the country’s course. And unlike Venezuela, Iran has sustained an active nuclear program.
The interview with Mr. Trump seemed to reflect the degree to which his administration remains uncertain about how the next few weeks will unfold, both on the battlefield and in the creation of a replacement government in Tehran.
But he insisted the Pentagon retained plenty of forces, missiles and bombs to sustain the military assault “if we have to.”
Asked how long the United and Israel could keep up this level of attacks, he responded: “Well, we intended four to five weeks.”
“It won’t be difficult,” Mr. Trump added. “We have tremendous amounts of ammunition. You know, we have ammunition stored all over the world in different countries.”
He made no mention of the Pentagon’s concerns that the conflict could further deplete reserves that military strategists have said are critical to retain in scenarios like a conflict over Taiwan or Russian incursions into Europe.
During the roughly six-minute call, Mr. Trump said he had “three very good choices” about who could lead Iran, although he declined to name them. Earlier on Sunday, Iran’s top national security official, Ali Larijani, said that an interim committee would run the country until a successor to the supreme leader was chosen.
Mr. Larijani oversaw the abruptly ended negotiations for a nuclear deal with the United States, and in January was targeted in sanctions by the Trump administration for his role in the crackdown on anti-government protesters.
Mr. Trump did not answer a question about whether he thought Mr. Larijani could lead the government of Iran.
The president offered a variety of often inconsistent visions of how a new government could take shape after the targeted killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who ruled the country for more than three decades until he was killed by an airstrike on Saturday.
When pressed on his plans for a transition of power, Mr. Trump said he hoped Iran’s elite military forces — including hardened officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who have held substantial influence and profited from the existing regime — would simply turn over their weapons to the Iranian populace.
“They would really surrender to the people, if you think about it,” he said.
It was those same security forces — in particular, the Basij, which organizes local militia — that opened fire on street protesters in January and killed thousands.
Then he offered a very different model of what the transition of power in Iran might look like, referring repeatedly to his experience in Venezuela after he ordered a Delta Force team to seize Mr. Maduro.
“What we did in Venezuela, I think, is the perfect, the perfect scenario,” Mr. Trump said.
His answer implied that what worked in Venezuela would work in Iran, a nation with about three times the population and a military and clerical leadership that has ruled with increasing repression since the 1979 revolution. Over the past several weeks, Mr. Trump has repeatedly brought up Venezuela as the model of a successful operation and hoped to replicate aspects of it in Iran, identifying leadership that would be more cooperative and friendly to the United States.
But he has been told by his advisers that the vast differences in cultures and history made it virtually impossible to apply the strategy used in Venezuela — in which the existing government was kept in place, after it agreed to take instructions from Washington — and try to replicate it in Tehran.
Nonetheless, Mr. Trump appears enamored of using a Venezuela-like model in Iran.
“Everybody’s kept their job except for two people,” Mr. Trump said of the outcome in Venezuela.
He was vague on the question of who should be in the top ruling position in Iran after the ayatollah’s death, or even who should decide.
At first, when asked whom he wanted to lead Iran, he said, “I have three very good choices.” He added: “I won’t be revealing them now. Let’s get the job done first.”
But then he described a scenario in which the Iranian people would overthrow the existing government.
“That’s going to be up to them about whether or not they do,” Mr. Trump said. “They’ve been talking about it for years so now they’ll obviously have an opportunity.” That would, of course, be the opposite of the Venezuela model that he had said minutes earlier he wanted to replicate.
Mr. Trump also said he did not think that the Arab states in the Persian Gulf were needed to join the United States in striking Iran, even though Tehran has targeted many of them — and Israel — with retaliatory missile and drone attacks.
Mr. Trump spoke from Mar a Lago, about 36 hours into the conflict, and soon after he received news of American casualties. Saying he could only speak briefly because he said he was about to meet with “the generals,” he acknowledged that his administration expected more casualties, based on projections offered by the Pentagon.
“Three is three too many as far I’m concerned,” Mr. Trump said. “If you look at projections, they do projections, it, you know, it could be quite a bit higher than that.”
“We expect casualties,” he added.
But he professed confidence that Iran would, in the end, bend to America’s and Israel’s will. “The country has been very substantially weakened, to put it mildly,” he added
Already, the United States and Israeli forces have killed a number of Iran’s military leaders, leaving a power vacuum that the Iranian government was already seeking to to fill.
Mr. Trump said that he was open to lifting sanctions on Iran if the new leadership shows itself to be a pragmatic partner.
But he also refused to say how — or if — his administration would defend the Iranian people he has said should overthrow the current government.
“I don’t make a commitment one way or the other; it’s too early,” Mr. Trump said. “We have work to do and we’ve done it very well. I’d say we’re quite ahead of schedule.”
Mr. Trump added that the U.S.-Israeli military strikes had “knocked out a big portion” of the Iranian navy, including nine ships and the navy headquarters.
After roughly six minutes, Mr. Trump said he had to end the interview.
Later Sunday afternoon, Mr. Trump returned to Washington.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
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