Over the course of nearly a month since the first US strikes on Iran, President Donald Trump has yo-yoed from demanding “unconditional surrender” to teasing a possible detente.
Confusion has become a mark of this war.
Trump has dubiously claimed Iran posed an “imminent” threat to the US, months after declaring the US had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities. He’s given a multitude of reasons for launching a war in the first place. He has declared victory scores of times, only to qualify those claims later on.
He has demanded Iran’s unconditional surrender and suggested he already won the war. Then he announced over the weekend that he held “productive” talks with Iran. Though the country’s foreign ministry at first denied Trump’s claim, the Iranians later acknowledged that the US initiated conversations. Now, 1,000 US soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division are preparing to deploy to the Middle East after Trump repeatedly refused to say if ground troops would be necessary.
We took a comprehensive look at what Trump has said publicly over the past three weeks about “Operation Epic Fury” as he appears to be trying to justify an expanding war to Americans in hindsight.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment asking for clarity on Trump’s positions.
How many times can you win a war?
“We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won!” Trump said on Truth Social on March 7 — about a week after the start of the war — expressing a thanks-but-no-thanks attitude to news the United Kingdom could dispatch aircraft carriers to the region.
Two days later, he said there’s more to do.
“We’re achieving major strides toward completing our military objective. And some people could say they’re pretty well complete,” he said at a March 9 press conference.
Two days after that, he declared victory again.
“And we’ve won. Let me tell you, we’ve won. You know, you never like to say too early you won. We won. We won the — in the first hour, it was over. We won,” he said at a rally in Hebron, Kentucky, on March 11.
That’s just a flavor of Trump’s back-and-forth assessments on whether the war has been “won” — or not.
Over the course of three weeks, the president has variously claimed the US has achieved victory, “militarily WON” or “basically ” won or “won in many ways.”
But he has also said that the war continues, that we “haven’t won enough” and that the US will still need to “finish the job.”
On Tuesday, Trump was back to saying the war was already won.
“You know, I don’t like to say this — we’ve won this, because this war has been won, the only one that likes to keep it going is the fake news,” Trump said in the Oval Office.
‘Unconditional surrender’ or a deal?
Trump demanded Iran’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” in a March 6 social media post. That demand came at a time when it was unclear whether the Iranian regime would survive the initial attack, and Trump was talking about a theoretical deal with future Iranian leaders that the US would have a say in selecting.
In an interview with CBS News the next day, Trump said surrender had already occurred.
“He’s already surrendered to all of the Middle Eastern countries because he was trying to take over the entire Middle East,” Trump said of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Pezeshkian had effectively apologized to neighboring countries for striking within their borders. Trump viewed that apology as a surrender, as he explained to reporters on Air Force One.
“That’s a surrender right there. I called it a surrender tonight… that’s really a surrender to those states and to us.”
A Truth Social post from President Donald Trump on March 6, demanding unconditional surrender from Iran.Donald Trump/Truth Social
A Truth Social post from President Donald Trump on March 23, in which he says he postponed strikes against Iranian power plants due to productive talks.Donald Trump/Truth Social
In the time since, however, the war has intensified. The regime did not collapse. And rather than accepting surrender, Trump is now talking about getting a deal in talks with Iran.
“They want very much to make a deal. We’d like to make a deal, too,” Trump told reporters Monday.
“We’re doing a five-day period. We’ll see how that goes, and if it goes well, we’re going to end up with settling this. Otherwise, we’ll just keep bombing our little hearts out,” he promised.
‘Ahead of schedule’ on an unclear timeline
Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth frequently say the US and Israel are ahead of schedule in the war. But they use very different language to describe how long things will take.
In the first few days of the war, Trump predicted that the operation would take about a month.
“I don’t want to see it go on too long. I always thought it would be four weeks. And we’re a little ahead of schedule,” Trump told CNN’s Jake Tapper on March 2.
He reiterated a similar timeline at the White House the same day.
“We projected four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that. We’ll do it. Whatever somebody said today — they said, ‘Oh, well, the president wants to do it really quickly. After that, he’ll get bored.’ I don’t get bored. There’s nothing boring about this,” he said.
According to that schedule, US military operations should end around the first week of April. But Trump has gotten less specific about the timeline as the war has expanded in the Middle East.
By March 16, for example, when he was asked by PBS News when the war would be over, Trump said: “I don’t believe it will be long,” and declined to give a timeline. “I don’t want to say. I never want to say that because if I’m two days late, you’ll criticize me,” he said.
What has been consistent all along has been his insistence that the operation is proceeding “ahead of schedule” — an assertion Trump has made at least a dozen times since strikes began on February 28.
Hegseth initially said the war could last three to eight weeks, but he has more recently said Trump will determine the “end state.”
“Our will is endless,” he told reporters at the Pentagon on March 10.
“I want the American people to understand is this is not endless. It’s not protracted. We’re not allowing mission creep,” Hegseth said.
Best case/worst case for who should lead Iran?
While Israel has for weeks been assassinating Iranian leaders, beginning with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the first hours of the war, Trump hoped early on to work with the Iranian regime.
“What we did in Venezuela, I think, is the perfect, the perfect scenario,” he told The New York Times on March 1. There, the US captured the country’s leader, brought him to the US for prosecution, and has since worked with his mostly intact regime to exert control over the country’s oil.
“We are doing so well in Venezuela with oil and with the relationship between the president-elect and us. And maybe we find somebody like that in Iran,” he said separately. Trump seemed to be referring to Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez, although she is not technically a president-elect since she has not won an election.
It quickly became clear that would not work in Iran, partially, as Trump noted, because Israel kept killing potential leaders. And that led to what Trump himself described when he was asked for what the worst-case scenario might be.
“I guess the worst case would be we do this and then somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person,” he said on March 3, a few days later into the war.
At the same appearance, however, he said the US would avoid an Iraq-style fiasco in trying to replace the entire government but would rather rely on the existing power structure, something he continues to hope for.
Trump has also previously said he wants a say in who will lead Iran.
“We wanna pick a president that’s not gonna be leading their country into a war,” he said March 7, the day before Iran’s government tapped the son of the previous supreme leader.
Trump’s ‘worst case’ is playing out
The assassinated Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, has been selected by Iran’s senior clerics as the country’s next leader. Some analysts have suggested he could be more hardline than his father, though the younger Khamenei still has not been seen publicly since the war started. Trump has declared him unacceptable.
Trump was asked on March 11 if he could declare victory if Khamenei was Iran’s leader.
“I don’t want to comment on that,” Trump said.
Talking to reporters Monday, Trump said he’s not even sure if Mojtaba Khamenei is alive and he wouldn’t say who the US is talking to in the country.
“Because I don’t want him to be killed, OK? I don’t want him to be killed.”
Will the US commit ground troops? The answer is not ‘no’
Trump and his top aides have consistently promised the Iran conflict will not be a “forever war” – a criticism they have often applied to the US engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have instead maintained strategic ambiguity about whether ground troops will be required. CNN reported Tuesday that 1,000 US soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division are preparing to deploy to the Middle East to be available for Iran operations.
When asked about the potential for ground troops, Trump routinely insults the questioner, such as when a Fox News host asked Trump a sympathetic question about whether the US could seize Kharg Island, which is home to Iranian oil development.
“Who would ask a question like that? And what fool would answer it, OK?” he said to Brian Kilmeade. “It’s sort of a foolish question. A little surprising for you because you’re a smart man,” Trump told the Fox News host.
On March 23, a reporter referenced reports that Marines from California were headed to the Middle East and asked if troops could be used to police the Strait of Hormuz.
“If you were in my position and I asked you that question, do you — do you really believe I’d give you an answer? A crazy question,” he said.
Epic flurry: How Trump’s words on Iran have yo-yoed over three weeks of war Egypt Independent.
Hence then, the article about epic flurry how trump s words on iran have yo yoed over three weeks of war was published today ( ) and is available on EGYPT INDEPENDENT ( Egypt ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Epic flurry: How Trump’s words on Iran have yo-yoed over three weeks of war )
Also on site :