U.S. President Donald Trump told Axios on Saturday that he has several “off ramps” from the U.S. military operation in Iran, saying he could “go long and take over the whole thing, or end it in two or three days.”
Axios did not provide specific details on Trump’s plans.
In the interview, conducted by phone from Mar-a-Lago, Trump suggested the scope and duration of the campaign remain flexible. “In any case, it will take them several years to recover from this attack,” he told Axios.
The remarks offer insight into Trump’s thinking as U.S. forces, alongside Israel, carry out a large-scale military campaign targeting Iran’s military and nuclear infrastructure.
A senior Trump administration official said the decision to launch the operation was driven in part by intelligence indicating that Iran intended to carry out a preemptive missile strike against U.S. forces.
The official said the United States had indicators that Iran was preparing to attack and that Trump chose not to allow American forces to absorb the initial blow.
“If we sat back and waited to get hit first, the amount of casualties and damage would be substantially higher,” the official said.
According to the same official, Iran refused during negotiations to address its ballistic missile program and also declined to discuss Tehran’s support for proxy forces across the region.
“We went with very blunt asks of the Iranians,” the official said, adding that “there was no seriousness on the Iranian side to achieve a real deal.”
The official said U.S. negotiators determined that Iran sought to preserve its uranium enrichment capability in order to enable a future weapons program.
The United States offered Iran multiple pathways to maintain a civilian, peaceful nuclear program, the official said, but those proposals were met with what the official described as “games and tricks.”
The official added that the United States offered to provide Iran with nuclear fuel indefinitely, but Tehran insisted on maintaining enrichment capabilities.
“We were reading intelligence that said Iran was in the throes of rebuilding all that had been destroyed in attacks last June,” the official said.
“President had no choice,” the official added.