US President Donald J. Trump said he was highly unlikely to launch a new offensive against Iran as long as current talks made progress. Even if strikes had to resume, the US had identified potential infrastructure targets that “could be destroyed within an hour”.
“It depends on whether or not they sign a very strong agreement,” Trump told CNN in a phone interview on Sunday (8 November), when asked whether he would strike Iran again. “The answer is, highly unlikely it's going to be necessary.”
However, he added, “I would if necessary, but we hit them really hard. I hit them so hard. You don’t know how hard I hit them. We had already dealt them a very heavy blow.”
He also stressed that if strikes resume, the US has identified potential infrastructure targets, including 38 bridges “that we can knock down in literally one hour.”
Trump had suggested that the US would launch another round of large-scale strikes on Iran after the midterm elections, but there has been no sign of such action so far. Iran has said it will retaliate against US and Israeli targets if attacked.
Trump: Task Force Iron Gate fully operational to enforce naval blockade of Iran
The Republicans suffered a crushing defeat in the midterm elections, losing control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Trump subsequently acknowledged that higher oil and petrol prices driven by the US-Iran conflict were partly responsible for the Republicans’ heavy losses. However, he continued to insist that the US had successfully prevented Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and that its naval blockade had successfully “strangled” Iran.
The US naval blockade of Iran has lasted several months since the war broke out in late February. In recent days, Washington has broadened its pressure campaign by setting up Task Force Iron Gate to crack down on Iran’s transport of advanced weapons and other sanctioned goods across its land borders and via the Caspian Sea.
Trump said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social later on Sunday that the task force was fully operational.
US-Iran peace talks stall as midterm election shock reverberates
Meanwhile, US-Iran talks have stalled again. Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said the shock of the US midterm elections had brought exchanges among mediators seeking to broker a US-Iran peace agreement to a complete halt.
“We now have to see how long it will take for them to digest these results, in order to determine how we are going to move forward.”
US secretary of state Marco Rubio also said that day that although Trump had consistently favoured a diplomatic solution, those efforts had achieved little, “because the Iranian demands are simply not just unacceptable, but in some cases outrageous and ridiculous and really unrealistic”.
Qatar plays a central role in mediating between the US and Iran, relaying proposals and seeking to bridge differences over Iran’s nuclear programme and the terms for ending the conflict.
According to the White House schedule, Trump will hold a closed-door meeting with Qatari Prime Minister and foreign minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani at the White House on Monday, local time. Sources said US Vice-President JD Vance also planned to meet Al-Thani.
