Trump on Iran war: ‘We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough’

US President Donald Trump characterizes the war with Iran as a “short-term excursion” from his economy-focused domestic agenda, again acknowledging that the ongoing conflict is spiking costs for Americans back home.

“We took a little excursion because we felt we had to do that to get rid of some people,” he says in remarks at a Republican congressional fundraising event in Florida, apparently referring to Iran’s leaders.

He again claims Iran would have obtained a nuclear weapon within two weeks had the US not targeted its nuclear sites last year.

Commenting on the ongoing operations, Trump says, “Together with our Israeli partners, we are crushing the enemy in an overwhelming display of technical skill and military force.

He says Iran’s drone and missile capability is being “utterly demolished” and that 46 Iranian navy ships have been sunk.

“The terrorist leaders are gone or they’re counting down the minutes until they will be gone,” Trump says amid speculation that the US and Israel will try and target Iran’s newly elected supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei after killing his father Ali in the war’s opening strike.

“We had leaders and they’re gone. They had new leaders and they’re gone. And now nobody has any idea who the people are that are going to be the head of the country… and we will not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated,” Trump says.

“We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough,” Trump adds.

He recalls meeting the parents of the first American casualties of the war, claiming, “They all said one thing to me: ‘make sure you win’.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during the war against Hamas in Gaza, said the parents of fallen soldiers offered him near-identical messages when he visited them.

Trump says Iran was “always a dark cloud hanging over — not only Israel, which was gonna get wiped out,” adding that Iran was also “looking to take over the Middle East.”

The US president touts the assistance provided by Arab countries that have been targeted as part of Iran’s retaliation for the US and Israeli strikes. “They could have gone toward their side… [but] they really went with our side, and they’ve helped us. They’ve been a big force.”

Responding to criticism of the varying justifications that the administration has provided for launching the war when it did, Trump again claims that if the US and Israel didn’t strike, “Within a week, [Iran was] going to attack us.”

Pentagon briefers reportedly acknowledged to Congressional staffers that the US does not have intelligence indicating that Iran was planning to preemptively attack the US.

Trump has also said that he had a “feeling” Iran was going to attack first.