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President Trump will offer the Iranian regime several “off ramps” from Operation Epic Fury, the joint US-Israeli military campaign that has already killed supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei and a large swathe of Iran’s senior leadership.
In a phone interview with Axios on Saturday, Trump said, “I can go long and take over the whole thing, or end it in two or three days and tell the Iranians: ‘See you again in a few years if you start rebuilding [your nuclear program].’”
“In any case, it will take them several years to recover from this attack,” Trump added.
The comments suggest President Trump is still open to a diplomatic solution.
As Axios notes, “A short operation followed by new ultimatums would be a dramatically different outcome than the regime change thatsome U.S. and Israeli officials have described as the goal.”
A senior US official has said the joint US-Israeli operational plan targets a heavy five-day bombing campaign. The President told Axios the schedule could change in response to events on the ground, including the fate of senior Iranian officials.
Trump said the two main reasons for the attacks were the failure of recent negotiations over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, led on the American side by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, and Iran’s history of funding terrorism and proxy wars for the last five decades.
“The Iranians got close and then pulled back—close and then pulled back. I understood from that that they don’t really want a deal,” Trump said, claiming the regime had rebuilt some of its nuclear facilities that were destroyed last June during Operation Midnight Hammer.
Trump said Midnight Hammer allowed the current operation to take place, and that Iran might already have had a nuclear weapon if those strikes had not been launched.
The President also confirmed that he had spoken to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after Saturday’s strikes, in addition to the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and the NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
