Trump is furious. Read more
Trump has dealt with Israel and IRAN’s war in the Middle East like a ‘daddy’ who uses ‘strong language’ to stop two children fighting in a schoolyard, NATO chief Mark Rutte has suggested.
Rutte has put on a deferential and even fawning display with the US president, calling his intervention in the conflict ‘decisive’ and labelling him a ‘man of strength but also a man of peace’.
Trump yesterday shared private messages from Rutte which also showed him gushing over the ‘extraordinary’ US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, which the US leader said ‘obliterated’ the sites.
Today, during a press conference ahead of the NATO summit, Trump compared the airstrikes to the two nuclear bombs dropped on Japan at the end of World War II, claiming his strikes also ended a war by pushing Iran to the negotiating table.
‘That hit ended the war,’ Trump said of last week’s strikes. ‘I don’t want to use an example of Hiroshima. I don’t want to use an example of Nagasaki. But that was essentially the same thing. That ended that war.’
‘If we didn’t take that out, they would have been they’d be fighting right now,’ he added. Trump also didn’t rule out another airstrike if necessary.
Speaking ahead of NATO summit meetings today, Trump was asked whether the US would strike again if Iran continued with its nuclear enrichment programme, and simply replied: ‘Sure.’
He also used the press conference to condemn news outlets including CNN and The New York Times, calling them ‘scum’ over their coverage of a leaked document on the impact of the weekend strikes.
The intelligence assessment leaked to the two outlets reportedly stated that the strikes against key nuclear facilities in the country only set back Iran’s nuclear programme by a couple of months.
Trump, however, claimed the strikes ‘completely and totally obliterated’ the facilities.
The Israeli military, which has also carried out strikes targeting Iranian nuclear scientists, the Natanz plant and other sites, meanwhile said it is ‘still too early to determine… the results of the strikes on the different sections of the nuclear programme.’
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