US President Donald Trump said Operation Epic Fury will not take much more time during his speech at the Republican Members’ Issues Conference in Florida on Monday.
“We are going to have a much safer world as soon as it ends, and it’s going to finish pretty quickly,” said Trump, raising hopes amid a war entering its second week.
The US president assured that the Iranian missile stock has been “largely knocked out,” along with drones and weapon factories.
“The missiles have gone largely knocked out, the drones have been knocked out, and now we are hitting where they make the drones. We know them all, and we are knocking the hell out of where they manufacture the drones,” he said.
According to the American president, 80% of Iranian missile launchers had already been destroyed up to that moment. “Iran was supposed to be this big, powerful country. We wrapped the hell out of them,” Trump noted.
Tehran has been a world threat for at least 47 years, Trump explained, saying that the current operation to defeat the Islamic Republic should have been done years ago.
Recently, the Middle Eastern state has been responsible for most of the terrorist activity in the region, making it imperative for the world to take care of the threat, he said. “Almost every act, whether it’s Hamas or Hezbollah, no matter what, you take a look and it’s Iran, or Iran sponsored,” Trump explained. He added that, even with the clear terrorist image of the country, “53 house democrats voted against a resolution affirming that Iran remains the world’s number one state sponsor of terror.”
‘We are crushing the enemy’
After Operation Epic Fury left seven US soldiers dead, Trump went to the Dover Air Force Base on Saturday to honor the fallen and their families.
In his speech at the conference, the US president expressed his “eternal gratitude” to the families of “those great heroes.” At the end of the visit, Trump said, the people in grief told him to keep up with the operations in Iran. “They all said one thing to me: make sure you win, sir, make sure you win.”
Trump noted that the current situation in the Islamic Republic shows good news, as he affirmed that “all” terrorist leaders, including the new ones chosen to assume power after the former ones died, have been eliminated. “We had leaders, and they are gone, then we had new leaders, and they are gone […] we will not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated,” he said.
Regarding the partnership with Israel, responsible for Operation Roaring Lion, the American leader said that together with Netanyahu, “we are crushing the enemy, in an overwhelming display of technical skill and military force.”
Trump noted that 46 ships from the Iranian navy were “knocked out, and actually took three and a half days.”
The American leader also said that “We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough,” adding that the world cannot be threatened by “evil” terrorists and “lunatics” anymore, since if the US weren’t attacking now the situation in the Middle East could be way worse.
“Not only Israel, which was going to get wiped out, but they would have had a nuclear weapon two weeks after that,” said Trump. He added that Iran was looking to take over the Middle East.
Regarding the Gulf states, which have also been attacked by Iran, the American president affirmed that they have been an “epic force” sided with the US. “All of those missiles that were so stupidly aimed at Qatar and Saudi Arabia, UAE, they were all aimed, and others […] they were sort of neutral, but all of a sudden, they are getting hit with missiles […] They could have gone to their side, like, or they could have gone to our side, and they really went with our side,” said Trump.
The American leader noted that if the US didn’t go in, Iran would come after it, along with larger attacks in the Middle East. “Within a week, they would going to attack us, 100%, they were ready. They had all these missiles, far more than anyone thought, and they were going to attack us. But they were going to attack all the Middle East and Israel, and if they had a nuclear weapon, they would have used it in Israel,” he added.