President Donald Trump insisted he didn’t misunderstand Iran’s “pain tolerance,” boasting of the successes of Operation Epic Fury.
In a preview of an interview set to air Friday evening, Fox News host Brett Baier pressed Trump on the Iran war, asking, “Why are we where we are?”
“I didn’t underestimate anything,” Trump said. “We hit them unbelievably hard. Look, we left their bridges. We left their electricity capacity. We can knock that all out in two days. Two days. Everything. We left Kharg Island. … Hit it except for the valves where the oil comes out. Because when you hit that, that means you’re going to lose a little oil.”
The president added that ships were now turning to the United States for oil, “like we’ve never seen before.”
Baier followed up by saying the public wanted to know how much longer the war was going to last. The president turned to history to put the events in a wider context, suggesting that the war hadn’t been going on long at all.
“Vietnam lasted 19 years,” Trump said. “Iraq was like 10 years. Korea was seven years. Another one was 14 years. Another one was 12 years. Another one was nine years. We’re in there for two and a half months.
“We lost tens of thousands of soldiers in Vietnam, we lost tens of thousands of soldiers in practically every war,” he said. “I’ve lost — and I wish we’d lost none because I know those parents, I spoke to them — lost 13 soldiers in two wars.”
ESTIMATED IRANIAN ECONOMIC DAMAGE FROM WAR APPROACHES $150 BILLION
Operation Epic Fury saw the U.S. and Israel kill thousands of Iranian troops and decimate its military infrastructure at the cost of 13 killed, with nearly half of those from non-combat-related causes. Despite this, the resilience of the degraded Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and continued Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz have deprived Trump of the quick political victory he was hoping for.
The U.S. blockade of Iran is strangling the country’s economy, with analysts estimating Tehran can only hold out until around August before a complete collapse. However, public tolerance may not expand to 3-4 more months, especially with the midterm elections coming up, putting pressure on Trump to possibly prematurely end the conflict without a full victory.