War in Iran: Trump addresses the nation: "We're very close to finishing the job, and we'll hit hard in the next two to three weeks."
The President addresses Americans from the White House for the first time since the beginning of the conflict and more than a month after the first attacks: "The new leaders? More reasonable."Donald Trump and his White House speech (Ansa - EPA/ALEX BRANDON / POOL)
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The work is almost complete. Donald Trump, at 3 a.m. Italian time, addressed Americans from the White House for the first time since the start of the war in Iran, more than a month after the first attacks. In a speech, he explained the reason for the war and assured: "We will hit Iran hard in the next two or three weeks; we will send them back to the Stone Age." And if an agreement isn't reached through the diplomatic channels currently underway, "we will hit their electrical systems."
A twenty-minute monologue—19 to be precise—few jabs at Western countries and few attempts to reassure the American people. His words didn't come as a surprise, even though they did line up, point by point, what the Republican has been repeating for weeks : that Operation Epic Fury in Iran, which began 33 days ago, served to "correct the mistakes of others" ("I did what no other president was willing to do," he says) and that the objectives were almost achieved.
Sitting before him in the Oval Office were, among others, Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense—or rather, Secretary of War—Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. According to US Central Command, since the beginning of operations, over 12,300 sites in Iran have been hit, over 13,000 combat flights have been carried out, and over 155 Iranian naval vessels have been damaged or destroyed. Tehran's navy and air force, Trump said in the Oval Office, "have been wiped out."
Most of it, in short, has been accomplished, he assures, thanks to "swift, decisive, and crushing victories on the battlefield." "We are well on our way to achieving all of America's military objectives shortly." And while on the military front, "never in the history of war has an enemy suffered such evident and devastating large-scale losses in a matter of weeks," on the economic front, even Trump cannot ignore the reality that gasoline prices in the US have reached $4 a gallon, a 30% increase, the highest since 2022. "Many Americans," he admits, "are concerned about the recent surge in gasoline prices in our country," but the "blame" lies with "the Iranian regime's insane terrorist attacks against commercial oil tankers and neighboring countries that have nothing to do with the conflict."
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, he assures, has no bearing. "The United States imports almost no oil" through that route, "and it won't import any in the future. We don't need it." Here, then, is his jab at NATO allies (the "paper tiger," as he called it on Wednesday) : "To those countries that can't get oil—many of which refused to participate in the decapitation of Iran, forcing us to do it ourselves—I have a suggestion. Number one: buy oil from the United States of America; we have plenty of it. We have so much of it. And number two: muster up some courage and go to the Strait and get it. Protect it. Use it for yourselves."
There's no need to worry about gas either, the US president downplays, because "when this conflict is over, the Strait" of Hormuz "will naturally open. It will start flowing again, and gas prices will quickly fall again." The future, in short, might not be so bad for Trump. "Discussions" with Iran "are ongoing. Regime change was not our goal, but it occurred because of the deaths of all their original leaders. They're all dead." The new Iranian leaders are "less radical and much more reasonable."
(Unioneonline/D)