Washington, DC: Even as a majority of Americans continue to call for peace in the Middle East, president Donald Trump did not rule out the possibility of sending US ground troops into Iran.
This will escalate the situation further, with heavy casualties expected from both sides.
“Like every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” Trump told the New York Post in one of several brief interviews on Monday.
“I say ‘probably don’t need them’, ‘if they were necessary’,” he further said, news agency AFP reported.
Trump also mentioned a “big wave” as he spoke to CNN. “We haven’t even started hitting them hard. The big wave hasn’t even happened. The big one is coming soon,” Trump said, as reported by Hindustan Times.
Washington did not know who the country’s new leader would be following the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Republican leader said.
“We don’t know who the leadership is. We don’t know who they’ll pick,” Trump said.
Whether a military operation against Iran could lead to a regime change in the near term is in doubt, Reuters reported. Iran is not like Venezuela, from where President Nicolas Maduro was taken away by US military and an interim leader took over from within the regime with apparent US backing, several leaders have reportedly said.
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday addressed concerns that the US-Israeli strikes in Iran could spiral into a stretched regional conflict. Trump’s announcement soon after this is of significance.
“This is not Iraq. This is not endless,” Hegseth said, referring to the 2003 invasion of Saddam Hussein-led Iraq by the US.
Along with US Air Force General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hegseth held the Trump administration’s first news briefing since Saturday’s strikes.
Hegseth said the operation had a “clear, devastating, decisive mission” to “destroy the missile threat” from Iran, destroy its navy and “no nukes”.
“No stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy-building exercise, no politically correct wars. We fight to win, and we don’t waste time or lives,” Hegseth said.
Asked if there are currently boots on the ground in Iran, Hegseth said, “No, but we’re not going to go into the exercise of what we will or will not do.”
It was “foolishness” to expect US officials to say publicly how far they’ll go, he said.
The US was not seeking to change the Iranian regime with the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, he said.
“This is not a so-called regime change war, but the regime sure did change and the world is better off for it,” Hegseth said.
It has been confirmed that four American troops have been killed in action so far. According to Red Crescent, there have been over 500 deaths in Iran.
Trump has said on Sunday that there would be more US casualties.
The US has also said that its ally Kuwait “mistakenly shot down” three American fighter jets during a combat mission as Iranian aircraft, ballistic missiles and drones were attacking on Monday. US Central Command said all six pilots ejected safely from the American F-15E Strike Eagles and were in stable condition.
Hegseth didn’t sound worried about nuclear weapons, but pointed to threats from other weaponry. “Iran was building powerful missiles and drones to create a conventional shield for their nuclear blackmail ambitions,” he said.
He dismissed questions about a timeframe and said, “President Trump has all the latitude in the world to talk about how long it may or may not take. Four weeks, two weeks, six weeks. It could move up. It could move back.”
