The United States might continue to “smack” Tehran militarily, President Donald Trump said Monday, but he suggested the recent resumption of limited strikes against Iran are unlikely to mark the start of a major new escalation.
Asked in the Oval Office whether the strikes were a return to full-scale war, Trump downplayed the threat from Iran.
“They’re a failed nation. They’ve got 350 percent inflation. They have no currency. They’re not paying their soldiers. Their leaders are largely dead. Their navy is gone. Their air force is gone. Their surveillance equipment is almost entirely gone. That doesn’t mean we won’t smack them. We’ll see what happens,” he said.
Iran and the United States have remained locked in combat after efforts to negotiate a truce fell apart in July. But six months into a war that Trump initially said would take just weeks, the intensity of the fighting has remained far more limited than in the opening phase of the conflict in March and early April. Iran’s forces have been degraded, but its hard-line regime has succeeded in clinging to power and maintains the ability to launch strikes and imperil shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump’s Monday comments suggested that the U.S. was unlikely to press a full-fledged new assault against Iranian targets, focusing more for now on expanding traffic through the strait by protecting oil tankers and other shippers that want to risk the crossing.
That is part of a new status quo that appears to be settling over the region, neither peace nor full-scale war, as U.S. military leaders warn top political leadership about extending the war amid mounting munitions shortages and stretched service members.
Iran and the U.S. traded attacks into Monday, with Tehran saying it had launched an effort against U.S. targets in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates after the U.S. Central Command said it had hit Iranian launchers that were preparing to fire into the Strait of Hormuz.
“We have the Strait of Hormuz in extremely good shape,” Trump said Monday. “Many ships got through last night, as you know, with the Navy’s assistance. … We’ve done a great job with Iran. Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.”
Trump also said Monday that he does not intend to use a nuclear weapon against Iran, responding to a question about whether he might ever contemplate doing so.
U.S. presidents are rarely explicit about when they would use nuclear weapons within a specific context, embracing ambiguity to keep adversaries uncertain about whether they might ever face the fearsome technology.
But it would also be unusual for a U.S. leader to contemplate using a nuclear weapon against a country that is not in possession of them. Iran has sought to preserve a nuclear enrichment program, but U.S. leaders have not accused it of actually attempting to cross the threshold of building a nuclear weapon. Trump has said that one of the core aims of the war was to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb.
Asked in the Oval Office on Monday whether he had “ruled out using a nuclear weapon against Iran,” Trump started by delivering the conventional answer, but pivoted immediately to a clear rejection of the idea.
“Well, I would never say that, but the answer is yes,” he said, appearing to be taken aback by the question. “I rule that, I rule out, no use. There’s no reason for it. What a stupid question that is, actually. Here they are, they’re totally defeated militarily. So now I defeat them, and now I should use a nuclear weapon on top of them? What a stupid question.”
Long before his political career, Trump was attentive to the risks of nuclear war, telling a Washington Post reporter in 1984 that he wanted to be the negotiator in nuclear arms limitation talks with the Soviet Union.
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