Trump: No deal needed to end the war, Iran won’t be able to obtain a nuke ‘for years’

WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump says Iran doesn’t have to agree to a deal for the US to end its military operation in the country.

“No, they don’t have to make a deal,” Trump says in response to the question in the Oval Office.

“When we feel that they are… put into the stone ages and won’t be able to come up with a nuclear weapon, then we’ll leave whether we have a deal or not,” Trump says. “It’s irrelevant now.”

It’s unclear if the US unilaterally ceases fire that Iran would follow suit.

Trump has claimed that the US already obliterated Iran’s nuclear program in strikes last year and said earlier Tuesday that he isn’t focused on Tehran’s stockpiles of highly-enriched uranium, so it’s unclear what else Trump is looking to accomplish militarily.

“It’s possible that we’ll have a deal because they want to make a deal more than I want to make a deal,” Trump adds.

“But in a fairly short period of time, we’ll be finished, and they will not be able to do a nuclear weapon for years,” he continues.

“Maybe in a long time from now, [they’ll be] able to do a nuclear weapon, you’ll have a president [who] will be like me, and he will go there and knock the hell out of them again,” Trump says, acknowledging that the ongoing war with Iran may not be definitive.

Just three weeks ago, Trump had made a nearly opposite statement, saying that he wanted to “make sure that we don’t have to go back every 10 years, when you don’t have a president like me that’s not going to do it.”