A top aide to President Donald Trump said the Pentagon estimates the Iran war, now in its third week, would take between four and six weeks.
Kevin Hassett, head of the White House’s National Economic Council, offered the timeline along with a caveat that the ultimate decision on when the war will conclude lies with Trump. He was among several administration officials on Sunday asking Americans for patience as energy prices spike, saying the goal of eliminating Iran as a threat in the Middle East is worth it.
As of Saturday, the Pentagon “believed that it would take four to six weeks to complete this mission and that we’re ahead of schedule,” Hassett said on CBS’ Face the Nation. “We expect that the global economy is going to have a big positive shock as soon as this is over.”
Energy Secretary Chris Wright signaled the war may last several more weeks with oil and gasoline prices elevated as the US and Israel seek to destroy Iranian military capabilities.
“I think that this conflict will certainly come to the end in the next few weeks — could be sooner than that — and we’ll see a rebound in supplies and a pushing down of prices after that,” Wright said on ABC’s This Week.
Brent crude closed at more than $103 per barrel on Friday as Iran retains a chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, normally a conduit for a fifth of the world’s oil and a similar portion of liquefied natural gas.
Trump on Saturday called on other countries to send warships to keep the strait open, saying he hopes China, France, Japan, South Korea and the UK would take part. A senior official in Japan’s governing party said sending Japanese navy vessels to the Middle East to escort tankers would face “high hurdles.”
Wright said he has been in talks with the countries Trump mentioned, though he didn’t elaborate. “Clearly we will have this support of other nations to achieve that objective,” he said on NBC’s Meet the Press.
Wright said the Trump administration was aware that going to war against Iran would cause “short-term disruption” and “a little bit of increased prices on Americans.”
“So this is short-term pain to get through to a much better place,” he told ABC. “But first and foremost right now is to finish to destroy Iran’s ability to project military force in the region and around the world.”
With Iran’s decimated leadership defiant in the face of US and Israeli airstrikes, Hassett argued that US domestic oil production means Iran has vastly less leverage than during the oil shocks of the 1970s.
“They think they’re going to harm the US economy and get President Trump to back down,” he said. “There couldn’t be anything that is a stupider thing to say. We’ve got lots and lots of oil.”
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