Trump Signals War With Iran May End Soon—Even as He Vows Not to Relent

President Donald Trump on Monday suggested that the war with Iran could be nearing its end, declaring that American and Israeli forces had already crippled much of Iran’s military infrastructure—even as he simultaneously vowed that the United States would press forward until the country’s leadership was decisively defeated.

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The mixed signals from the President, delivered across a day of interviews and speeches, underscored the uncertain trajectory of a conflict that has expanded rapidly across the Middle East and raised fears in Washington that it could deepen into a longer and deadlier war.

In a phone interview with CBS News on Monday afternoon, Trump portrayed the war on Iran as nearly finished. “I think the war is very complete, pretty much,” the President said from his golf club in Doral, Fla., arguing that Iran’s military capabilities had been largely destroyed after a wave of strikes by the United States and Israel. “If you look, they have nothing left. There’s nothing left in a military sense.”

Read more: Trump’s War

But hours later, speaking to Republican lawmakers gathered for a House policy retreat in Florida, Trump struck a very different tone, describing the war as unfinished and pledging continued military pressure.

“We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough,” Trump told the crowd, which responded with applause. “We go forward more determined than ever to achieve ultimate victory that will end this long-running danger once and for all.”

He added that the United States would not stop until Iran’s leadership and military apparatus were fully defeated. “Now nobody has any idea who the people are that are going to be the head of the country,” Trump said, after Iran announced that Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the slain supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would assume the position. “And we will not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated.”

At a press conference following his remarks to Republican lawmakers, Trump said he was “disappointed” by Iran’s announcement that Mojtaba Khamenei would be leading the country, adding that he and other U.S. officials “think it’s going to lead to just more of the same problem for the country.”

Read more: Here’s What Trump Has Said About Iran’s New Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei

Yet while speaking to lawmakers Trump also repeatedly called the war a “short-term excursion,” saying that the United States had gone into the region “to get rid of some evil” and predicting that the campaign would end quickly. 

“Together with our Israeli partners, we’re crushing the enemy in an overwhelming display of technical skill and military force,” Trump said. “Iran’s drone and missile capability is being utterly demolished. The Navy is gone. It’s all lying at the bottom of the ocean. 46 ships. Can you believe it?” He added that the U.S. “got rid of about 80% of” Iran’s missile launchers.

At the press conference later on Monday, the President again portrayed the war in Iran as nearly at its end, saying, “We’re achieving major strides toward completing our military objective, and some people could say they’re pretty well complete.” When a reporter asked him if the war could end as soon as this week, Trump said no, but “very soon.”

Still, the President’s insistence that the war could soon be finished also stood in contrast with signals from the Pentagon that the campaign may only be beginning. On Monday, the Defense Department posted a message on social media declaring, “We have only just begun to fight.”

The comments reflected an Administration still struggling to define both the goals and the expected duration of a war now days into its second week. Since the conflict began, senior officials have offered a series of shifting explanations for the initial strikes on Iran—at times emphasizing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, at other moments citing the need to protect American troops and allies in the region, or pointing to Israel’s own military plans.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio initially suggested that the United States moved in part because Israel was preparing its own attack and might have triggered retaliation against American forces. Trump later rejected that framing, saying he believed Iran itself was preparing to strike first and that he might have “forced Israel’s hand.”

The war has already produced a widening humanitarian and economic toll across the region. The Iranian Red Crescent Society has said roughly 1,300 people have been killed in strikes inside the country, while Iranian attacks across the Middle East have killed more than 30 people. Israeli strikes have also expanded into Lebanon, killing nearly 500 people, according to the Lebanese officials, and displacing hundreds of thousands of civilians.

“We’re going to have a much safer world as soon as it’s finished,” Trump said Monday. “It’s going to be finished pretty quickly.”

Chantelle Lee contributed.