US President Donald Trump has claimed that ordinary Iranians were urging the US to keep bombing their own country in pursuit of “freedom”, as he renewed his warning of sweeping strikes on Iran’s critical infrastructure if negotiations fail ahead of his Tuesday deadline.
Sounding triumphant after what he described as a “dangerous” operation to rescue a wounded American pilot from deep inside Iran, Trump on Monday warned that Iran could be “taken out in a night”, saying US forces had the capability to destroy major facilities within hours if a deal was not reached in time.
“Complete demolition by 12 o’clock … over a period of four hours, if we wanted to,” he said, but added that Washington did not want to pursue that outcome and could instead help rebuild the country if an agreement was reached.
“We need to have a deal that’s acceptable to me, and that includes free traffic in the Strait of Hormuz,” he added.
While he admitted that he did not know whether the war was winding down or escalating, Trump alleged that the people of Iran were willing to “suffer” and wanted the US to keep “dropping” bombs for “freedom”.
“They would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom … We’ve had numerous intercepts: ‘please keep bombing’ – bombs that are dropping near their homes. ‘Please keep bombing. Do it’,” Trump said.
