{"id":49438,"date":"2026-04-03T04:22:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T04:22:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/49438\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T04:22:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T04:22:24","slug":"trump-uses-iran-war-address-to-make-case-for-american-patience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/49438\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump uses Iran war address to make case for American patience"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump<\/a> used his first major address<\/a> since launching his war in Iran<\/a> to assure Americans that all of his military objectives will be completed \u201cshortly\u201d and urge an increasingly skeptical electorate to give him a little bit more time.<\/p>\n

Trump in his Wednesday evening speech<\/a> dialed back the bluster that\u2019s dominated his rhetoric in recent days as world markets convulse and a badly battered Iran is still landing some effective blows on Gulf neighbors\u2019 infrastructure and U.S. bases. <\/p>\n

But the Republican president\u2019s promise to \u201cfinish the job\u201d hardly built confidence with a jittery market as oil prices surged and Asian stocks fell<\/a> as he vowed that the U.S. will continue to hit Iran very hard.<\/p>\n

He offered no detail about the state of negotiations with Iran that could bring about a promised endgame that he insists could come in a matter of weeks. There was also no overt lashing out at NATO allies<\/a> for failing to fall in line and help him reopen the critical Strait of Hormuz waterway \u2014 something White House officials had said would be a prominent part of his roughly 20-minute address.<\/p>\n

The U.S. will continue to hit Iran hard for the next two or three weeks, he said, without saying how much longer the war would last. But he offered a plea to Americans to show a little patience.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in this military operation, so powerful, so brilliant, against one of the most powerful countries for 32 days, and the country has been eviscerated and essentially is really no longer a threat,\u201d Trump said. \u201cThis is a true investment in your children and your grandchildren\u2019s future. The whole world is watching, and they can\u2019t believe the power, strength and brilliance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump finds himself not only negotiating with an enemy that refuses to throw in the towel but also dealing with an American tolerance for a conflict that\u2019s being stretched.<\/p>\n

Most Americans believe recent U.S. military action against Iran<\/a> has gone too far, and many are worried about affording gasoline, according to an AP-NORC poll conducted in mid-March, a couple of weeks after the war started. While Trump is deploying more warships and troops<\/a> to the Middle East, about 59% of Americans say U.S. military action in Iran has been excessive.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, 45% are \u201cextremely\u201d or \u201cvery\u201d concerned about being able to afford gas in the next few months, up from 30% in an AP-NORC poll<\/a> conducted shortly after Trump won reelection with promises that he would improve the economy<\/a> and lower the cost of living.<\/p>\n

Americans, Trump noted, have certainly shown patience during times of war. <\/p>\n

\u201cAmerican involvement in World War I,\u201d he said, \u201clasted one year, seven months and five days. World War II lasted for three years, eight months and 25 days. The Korean War lasted for three years, one month and two days. The Vietnam War lasted for 19 years, five months and 29 days. Iraq went on for eight years, eight months and 28 days.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hours before his address, Trump seemed to reflect on the domestic pressure he\u2019s feeling to wrap up the war. <\/p>\n

Speaking at a private lunch<\/a> at the White House to mark Easter, Trump argued that the U.S. could \u201cvery easily\u201d use this moment to take Iran\u2019s oil. It is \u201cunfortunate,\u201d he lamented, that there did not seem to be patience among the American people for such an effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey want to see it end,\u201d he said. He added, \u201cPeople in the country sort of say, \u2018Just win. You\u2019re winning so big. Just win. Come home.\u2019 And I\u2019m OK with that, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats lash at Trump for failing to offer a coherent argument for conflict<\/p>\n

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said Trump\u2019s speech was \u201cgrounded in a reality that only exists in Donald Trump\u2019s mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

The president, Democrats fumed, offered no plan for how he would go about reopening Hormuz, the critical waterway for oil tankers that a battered Iran has effectively choked off even though Trump claims it\u2019s been defeated.<\/p>\n

For allies worried about a global economy that\u2019s been rattled by rising oil prices, Trump suggested they \u201cbuy oil from the United States of America\u201d and \u201cbuild up some delayed courage\u201d and help the U.S. secure the strait. Trump made no attempt to answer his European critics who say he entered his war of choice against Iran<\/a> without consulting global allies but is now expecting the world to help him fix the unintended damage<\/a> that it has caused.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are losing this war,\u201d Murphy added. \u201cWe cannot destroy all their missiles or drones, nor their nuclear program. Iran projects more power in the region than they did before the war, especially if they now permanently control the Strait of Hormuz. We are spending billions we don\u2019t have and losing American lives in a war that is destabilizing the world and making us look feckless.\u201d<\/p>\n

President steers clear of suggesting ground troops deployment could be coming<\/p>\n

Trump offered cautious optimism that those now in power in Iran after more than a month of U.S. and Israeli strikes are \u201cless radical and much more reasonable\u201d with much of the pre-war Islamic Republic\u2019s hierarchy taken out. He didn\u2019t explicitly mention a Monday deadline he has set for Iran to open the strait or face attacks from U.S. forces on its energy infrastructure, though he made clear that he remains open to targeting the heartbeat of Tehran\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there is no deal, we are going to hit each and every one of their electric generating plants very hard and probably simultaneously,\u201d Trump said. \u201cWe have not hit their oil, even though that\u2019s the easiest target of all, because it would not give them even a small chance of survival or rebuilding. But we could hit it, and it would be gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump also notably did not signal that he\u2019s making any preparation for a ground invasion by American troops.<\/p>\n

He seemed to steer away from the possibility of sending ground troops to secure Iran\u2019s nearly 1,000 pounds (450 kilograms) of highly enriched uranium<\/a>, saying it \u201cwould take months\u201d for Iran to get to it as it\u2019s buried under the rubble created by last year\u2019s American bombing campaign of Iran\u2019s nuclear sites.<\/p>\n

Trump has offered shifting reasons<\/a> for launching the war, but he has been consistent in articulating that a primary objective in joining Israel in the military action is ensuring that Iran will \u201cnever have a nuclear weapon.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

But over the course of the conflict, he has been more circumspect about how far he\u2019s willing to go to follow through on his pledge to destroy Iran\u2019s weapons program once and for all, including seizing or destroying the near-bomb-grade nuclear material that Iran possesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have it under intense satellite surveillance and control,\u201d Trump said in his prime-time speech. \u201cIf we see them make a move, even a move for it, we\u2019ll hit them with missiles very hard again. We have all the cards. They have none.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writers Collin Binkley, Michelle L. Price and Konstantin Toropin contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump used his first major address since launching his war in Iran to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[325,8822,38,777,197,34,61,196,768,2222,81,200,771,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-49438","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iran","8":"tag-ap-top-news","9":"tag-chris-murphy","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-energy-industry","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-iran","14":"tag-iran-government","15":"tag-iran-war","16":"tag-military-and-defense","17":"tag-oil-and-gas-industry","18":"tag-politics","19":"tag-war-and-unrest","20":"tag-washington-news","21":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116338867736784707","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}