Donald Trump has laid out four goals in Iran and said the US campaign had been projected to last four to five weeks but could “go far longer than that”.
On Monday the US president offered his most extensive comments yet about the war, going beyond two video messages and a series of brief phone interviews with reporters that offered sometimes conflicting objectives.
But Trump undercut the gravity of his remarks by abruptly pivoting to tout his plans for a new White House ballroom, boasting that it would be the “most beautiful ballroom in the world”, coming in “under budget” and “ahead of schedule” for “$400m or less”.
The banging of construction work on the ballroom was audible at a Medal of Honor ceremony in the East Room, where the president sought to justify Saturday’s intervention, which killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and mocked criticisms that he was likely to get “bored” and move on.
Trump said he had ordered the attack on Iran to thwart Tehran’s nuclear development and a ballistic missile programme that was “growing rapidly and dramatically” and “posed a very clear, colossal threat to America and our forces stationed overseas.”
The president asserted without evidence that Iran “would soon have had missiles capable of reaching our beautiful America” – a claim disputed by national security experts. Trump added that other countries backed US efforts to stop Iran pursuing a nuclear weapon but “they just didn’t have the courage to say so”.
The president then took aim at his predecessor and rival. “I was very proud to have knocked out the Iran nuclear deal by President Barack Hussein Obama,” he said. “That was a horrible, horrible, dangerous document. They would have had nuclear weapons three years ago and they would have used them. But I’ll not let that happen.”
Trump said the Iranian regime had a history of attacking the US and killing Americans, including through roadside bombs. “This was our last best chance to strike – what we’re doing right now – and eliminate the intolerable threats posed by this sick and sinister regime.”
He said the objectives of the war included destroying Iran’s missile capabilities, annihilating their navy and stopping from them from having a nuclear weapon. Trump said a third objective was a long-standing US goal, to prevent Iran from supporting militant groups elsewhere in the region.
The president noted the loss of four American service personnel in the fight so far, adding: “In their memory, we continue this mission with ferocious, unyielding resolve to crush the threat this terrorist regime poses to the American people.”
Trump continued: “We’re already substantially ahead of our time projections, but whatever the time is, it’s OK, whatever it takes, we will always and we have from right from the beginning.
“We projected four to five weeks but we have capability to go far longer than that. We’ll do it … Somebody actually said, from the media, I think you’ll get bored after about a week or two. No, we don’t get bored. I never get bored, if I got bored, I wouldn’t be standing here right now. I guarantee you that. To go through what I had to go through.”
The ceremony bestowed the Medal of Honor to three service members including staff sergeant Michael Ollis, who died in Afghanistan. But it was Trump’s ballroom comments that caused a stir on social media.
Susan Glasser, a staff writer at the New Yorker, posted on X: “Bragging about his “beautiful ballroom” while he’s supposed to be explaining the somber decision to go to war. It’s one of the most politically tone deaf things I’ve ever seen from a POTUS, including this one…”
