US President Donald Trump has said that he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will mutually decide on when to end the ongoing war with Iran. Trump also said that it is unlikely that Israel will have to continue attacking Iran after the US halts its strikes.
When asked about the end of the war and Netanyahu’s role in it, Trump told The Times of Israel that he will have the final say.
“I think it’s mutual… a little bit. We’ve been talking. I’ll make a decision at the right time, but everything’s going to be taken into account,” he said.
“Iran would have destroyed Israel”
On the decision to launch Operation Epic Fury, Trump said Iran would have destroyed Israel and the Middle East if the US had not struck.
“Iran was going to destroy Israel and everything else around it… We’ve worked together. We’ve destroyed a country that wanted to destroy Israel,” Trump said.
How long will US-Iran war last
The US and Israel launched the attack on Iran on February 28. The conflict is already into its second week, and Trump has said that nothing short of a total Iranian surrender would end it. Iran, which has refused any form of surrender, has vowed to resist and has dragged the entire Middle East into the conflict by launching missiles and drones at US bases and assets across the region.
Trump has so far set no timeline for the end of the war, which he says could take a few weeks for it. The Trump administration has publicly projected a potential duration of 4-6 weeks for the military operation. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested it could extend to eight weeks or more, noting the US is prepared for a “war of attrition”.
However, others, including Trump’s former National Security Advisor John Bolton, have argued that the conflict could drag on for months if the US fails to enforce regime change in Iran soon.
Many have also argued that after the initial shock following the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have consolidated their positions and are in much better control of the country, compared to less than a week ago.
Will US puts boots on the ground in Iran?
The lack of a popular uprising, which the US had anticipated in Iran against the government, following the airstrikes, has also left those in Washington to seriously consider putting boots on the ground.
Trump has refused to roll out putting US boots on the ground in Iran, and over the weekend, there were reports about the Department of Defense canceling a major training exercise of the elite 82nd Airborne Division’s headquarters element at Fort Liberty, which many saw as a preparation for their deployment in Iran.
On Sunday, axios reported that the US and Israel discussed sending special forces into Iran to secure its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
Last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a congressional briefing that “People are going to have to go and get it, when asked whether Iran’s enriched uranium would be secured.
