A week into the US-Israel war on Iran, President Donald Trump has offered little clarity on how the conflict might end or what would constitute victory. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Florida on Saturday, he gave meandering and often equivocal answers, reflecting an apparent lack of a clear strategy.
Trump repeated his call for Iran to accept “unconditional surrender”, but struggled to define what that meant in practice. “It’s where they cry uncle or when they can’t fight any longer and there’s nobody around to cry uncle – that could happen too,” he said. On the timeline, he had previously suggested the campaign might end within four or five weeks, but on the plane he shrugged: “I don’t know. Whatever it takes.”
Asked about a strike on a girls’ elementary school in south-west Iran that killed more than 160 people, many of them children, Trump made a surprise claim, saying: “No, in my opinion based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran. They’re very inaccurate as you know with their munitions.” Video evidence appears to show a US Tomahawk cruise missile, a weapon not known to be in Iranian hands. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, standing nearby, said only that the matter was under investigation.
Trump insisted the war would continue, telling reporters: “No, we’re winning the war by a lot. We decimated their whole evil empire. It will continue I’m sure for a little while but I’m very proud of the people.” When asked about the deaths of six American service members killed in Operation Epic Fury, he said deaths were a “part of war”.
The remarks came barely an hour after the dignified transfer of the fallen troops at Dover Air Force Base, where a dark C-17 carried their remains. During his 2024 campaign, Trump had spoken of avoiding “forever wars” and described the grief of military families, but his tone on this occasion appeared markedly more detached.
