WASHINGTON — President Trump said Tuesday that Tehran would face much greater destruction if the war continues — warning “they haven’t seen anything yet” as he pledged to strike Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain.
After the loss of at least three US service members over the weekend, Trump has vowed to avenge their deaths. He’s revived his threat of ruinous assaults on Iranian infrastructure, including power plants and bridges.
“If we left today, it would take Iran 20, 25 years to rebuild, OK? And we’re not finished at all,” Trump said from the Oval Office. “But if we left right now, it would take them a long time — years, years — to rebuild. But we’re not leaving right now.”
“…Honestly, they haven’t seen anything yet. We’ve been nice,” he added.
He further warned any effort to restart the nuclear program would be met with military might, referring to reports that Israeli intelligence believes Tehran moved thousands of centrifuges used to enrich uranium there this past fall — adding that US forces will strike Iran’s site “pretty soon.”
“There’s not a thing they can do about it,” Trump told reporters while meeting Lebanese President Joseph Aoun. “Normally, I wouldn’t say that. If I thought they could do something about it, I would never say that. But we’ll be hitting that area pretty soon, and very heavily.”
Trump marveled at the Iranians’ audacity to rebuild their nuclear program following last year’s Operation Midnight Hammer.
“The new site that they’re talking about — how about these people? They’re in this because of nuclear weapons, and they’re trying to possibly reconstitute a site,” Trump said. “We’ll hit that site. Any site where they’re even thinking about nuclear, we’ll be hitting it very, very powerfully.”
Still, he argued that the location of nuclear material remained the key factor in his pursuit of a nuclear-free Iran.
“It doesn’t mean anything unless they have the material,” Trump said. “We follow the material. That’s where the action is.”
Still, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the door remains open for diplomacy — after disagreement over sea lanes in the Strait of Hormuz derailed the memorandum of understanding signed last month with Tehran.
“Iran’s been given every opportunity to negotiate to show that they’re reasonable in the Strait of Hormuz, but if they’re going to shoot at commercial shipping, then we’re going to hit them as the president said 10 times harder,” Hegseth said. “Every night we’re degrading them further and further, and the president has all the options necessary.”
“If they want to talk; they can talk. Otherwise, they can deal with the War Department, and we’re prepared,” he added.
Trump said Iran was “probably” trying to hurt him in the midterm elections by reviving the conflict, but insisted that “behind the scenes” Iranian officials “want to meet desperately to try and end it because they’re getting decimated.”
“They won’t have any impact on me,” Trump said. “I’m just going to do the right thing. I don’t view it as you having an election in a period of time.”
Trump also defended his previous decisions targeting Iran’s nuclear ambitions, crediting his withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear agreement and a previous US strike on Iranian nuclear sites with preventing Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
“If I didn’t terminate the Iran nuclear deal… you wouldn’t have Israel right now because they would have had a nuclear weapon years ago,” Trump said.
The president said Washington would continue its campaign until Iran’s ability to threaten the region was eliminated.
