US President Donald Trump has reportedly told his advisers he wanted to avoid a long war in Iran and hoped to end the conflict in the coming weeks.
According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Trump privately indicated he believed the conflict was in its final stages. He also urged officials to stick to the four-to-six-week timeline he had publicly outlined, potentially wrapping up before the mid-May summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Separately, speaking at the NRCC Annual Fundraising Dinner on Thursday, Trump said the US had settled eight wars and was winning another one in the Middle East.
“We settled eight wars. We are winning another one. Nobody has seen anything like what we are doing in the Middle East with Iran.
They are negotiating, by the way. They want to make a deal so badly, but they are afraid to say it because they figure they will be killed by their own people. They are also afraid they will be killed by us. There has never been a head of a country who wanted that job less than being the head of Iran,” he said.
Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump preferred peace and had temporarily postponed planned strikes after Iran expressed willingness to talk.
“President Trump’s preference is always peace. However, following his powerful threat on Saturday evening, it was made clear that Iran wanted to talk,” she said.
Leavitt added that the US has been engaged in productive conversations over the last three days, which led Trump to instruct the department of war to postpone planned strikes on Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure.
She warned, “Let me be clear, Iran should not miscalculate again. Their last miscalculation cost them their senior leadership, their navy, their air force, and their air defence system. President Trump does not bluff, and he is prepared to unleash hell if they refuse to accept the reality that they have been defeated.”
Meanwhile, Iran responded that any end to the conflict would happen only on its own terms. Tehran emphasised that it would stop hostilities “when it decides to do so and when its own conditions are met,” and vowed to continue defending itself and inflict “heavy blows” on the enemy until its demands are satisfied.
