President Donald Trump sought to reassure voters one day before the midterm elections that the conflict with Iran was not a “forever war,” describing it instead as a “soft war” that the United States could end at any moment.
“We’re not fighting a war … When was the last time we fired anything? This isn’t a war, this is a very soft war,” Trump said Monday during an appearance on “Hannity.”
Iran could become a decisive issue as Americans head to the polls Tuesday, with voters confronting rising gas prices and the economic consequences of the US conflict, which began eight months ago.
“What’s a war? A war is fighting. Take a look at World War I, World War II. When was the last time you saw us fighting with them? We go months and months, we talk,” Trump told host Sean Hannity.
“This is not much of a war, Sean, because there hasn’t been shooting for months.”
Trump spoke shortly after the United States struck Iran’s Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, following an Iranian attack on a US aircraft.
Officials confirmed to Fox News that the “defensive” operation did not signal a return to full-scale US military strikes against Iran.
The president said Monday that he was not rushing to resume military strikes against Iran, but warned that the US would soon bring “the hammer” down if the latest round of peace talks failed to produce results.
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“With [Operation] Midnight Hammer, we bombed out all of their potential nuclear power. Now we might have to go after Pickaxe [Mountain], but that’s not a big deal. We can do it in literally one hour,” Trump told Fox News.
“This isn’t like a war that’s going on, there’s no war raging,” he added. “It could happen if they don’t make a deal. But they want to make a deal very badly, and there is a very good chance we make a deal.”
The financial cost of the Iran conflict has become a political burden for Republicans ahead of Election Day, with the Pentagon estimating that the war has cost taxpayers more than $47 billion.
Trump dismissed criticism of the enormous price tag, calling the expense “peanuts” and arguing that the operation was necessary to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
“Their military is gone, their navy is gone, their air force is gone, their anti-aircraft is gone, and they have some missiles, but they don’t have many of them – very little capacity to build more. They have drones, but they don’t have very many, they have very little capacity to build more,” he said.
“What we’ve done is amazing,” the president continued.
Trump said the United States was negotiating from a position of “total strength” and maintained that the conflict could be brought to an end “at any time.”
