President Donald Trump on Sunday sought to justify the US military campaign against Iran by citing the need to secure America’s long-term safety and to prepare the public for further casualties following the deaths of three US service members.
“Sadly, there will likely be more before it ends,” Trump said in a video address posted on his Truth Social platform, responding to news of the losses.
“America will avenge their deaths and deliver the most punishing blow to the terrorists who have waged war against, basically, civilisation,” he added from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
Trump has not addressed the nation directly since the strikes on Iran began on Saturday, but he has released two video messages, announced the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Truth Social, and held several telephone interviews with journalists. He did not speak to reporters on Air Force One as he returned to Washington from Florida.
Senior administration officials are scheduled to brief Congress on the rationale for the strikes on Tuesday, the White House said.
Four weeks
Speaking to the British newspaper Daily Mail, Trump suggested the conflict would last approximately four weeks. “It’s always been a four-week process. We figured it will be four weeks or so,” he said.
He told Fox News: “Nobody can believe the success we’re having; 48 leaders are gone in one shot. And it’s moving along rapidly.”
To NBC News, Trump acknowledged that casualties were expected but insisted the campaign would benefit the world: “We expect casualties, but in the end it’s going to be a great deal for the world.”
He framed the operation as a long-term defence measure: “We’re undertaking this massive operation not merely to ensure security for our own time and place but for our children and their children. These actions are right, and they are necessary to ensure that Americans will never have to face a radical, bloodthirsty terrorist regime armed with nuclear weapons and lots of threats.”
Naval losses
Trump also claimed significant damage to Iran’s naval forces. “I have just been informed that we have destroyed and sunk nine Iranian naval ships, some of them relatively large and important,” he said on Truth Social.
“We are going after the rest – they will soon be floating at the bottom of the sea as well! In a different attack, we largely destroyed their naval headquarters,” he added.
Neither Trump nor other senior officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, have made public appearances since the operation began.
According to The Atlantic, Trump indicated that Iran’s leaders “want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them." They should have done it sooner. But most of those people are gone.”
In an interview with CNBC, he said: “We’re doing our job not just for us but for the world. And everything is ahead of schedule. Things are evolving in a very positive way right now, a very positive way.”
