After more than 30 days of US engagement in Iran, President Trump delivered a national primetime address making the case for war. He said the US would meet all its objectives “very soon”.
Mary Louise Kelly, host:
President Trump’s prime-time address was billed as an important update on Iran. This was an update. In many places it was even a boast.
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President Donald Trump: Never in the history of war has an enemy suffered such obvious and devastating massive losses in a matter of weeks.
Kelly: And a threat.
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TRUMP: If there’s no deal, we’re going to attack each of their power generation plants very strongly and probably all at once.
KELLY: And an effort to calm the nerves of a nation that surveys show largely opposes war.
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TRUMP: It’s very important that we keep this conflict in perspective. American involvement in World War I lasted one year, seven months, and five days.
KELLY: I spoke with NPR national security correspondent Greg Myre and Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman to find out what the address did and didn’t reveal about the direction of the war in Iran. That was it for our weekly national security podcast Sources and Methods.
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KELLY: President Trump spoke for 19 minutes, which is a long time to speak uninterrupted, and he managed to not say that much, which means most of what we heard last night, we’d already heard. This was a repeat of his recent social media post. Have any of you gleaned any deep, new information about this war from last night’s comments? Greg, you want to kick us out?
Greg Myre: Yes. One thing that really struck me was the two to three week time frame to complete it. And, you know, setting a timeline is always risky. Military commanders say you set goals, not deadlines. You don’t want to be bound by any artificially created deadlines. But he did not say how two key issues would be resolved – opening the Strait of Hormuz or dealing with Iran’s nuclear program. He also did not say whether there was going to be an agreement that would end this war, or whether America would simply walk away from it? So I’m sure Trump will claim success whenever this war ends, but he left these huge, huge, important questions unresolved.
Tom Bowman: And also the two to three weeks that he mentioned.
Kelly: Yes.
BOWMAN: He said, if they don’t come to talks, we’ll bomb them back to the Stone Age. Well, what if the Iranians say, yes, let’s meet in Geneva in June? Will he say no? Will he keep bombing?
Kelly: I mean, that…
Bowman: We don’t know exactly what the plan is going forward.
Kelly: This is something I was listening to and didn’t hear last night. I did not hear any proposal for Iran. No diplomatic beginning. Do we know how it landed in Iran? Have we heard any reaction from Iran?
Myre: A little bit. We heard from some people in Iran, including a member of the Revolutionary Guards, and they said Trump has been poisoned by the “Hollywood illusion,” and he kind of made fun of America, you talk about the Stone Age when you have 250 years of history – well, this is a civilization with 6,000 years of history. So again, it’s – you know, it’s rhetoric, but it’s a tone of defiance. You definitely don’t get the sense that the conversation is going anywhere. We know that Pakistan is trying to mediate some of the talks and maybe send messages, but you don’t really get the sense that there is real movement towards peace talks that can resolve this and resolve the US and Iranian issues.
KELLY: And we’ve been circling this, but just to get at it for a moment – there are contradictions here. You referenced Tom’s line in last night’s address, you know, we’re going to bring them back – bomb them back to the Stone Age, while President Trump is saying we’re very close to finishing the job. How do we classify them?
BOWMAN: You know, we don’t really do that. it…
Kelly: Like, are we moving forward or not?
Bowman: Well, we’re not sure yet. And again, this is contradictory. It’s like, we’re going to bomb you. bargain. We don’t trust you. Back and forth. And at the same time, you also have more American troops going into the region. We have repeatedly talked about Kharg Island. They could capture Kharg Island. They could capture some ports on the mainland. We have no idea what they will actually do once everyone arrives. And if, again, it’s (ph)…
Kelly: We don’t even know how it’s going to be done in two to three weeks and then…
Bowman: No, that’s exactly it.
KELLY: …and then wrapped up.
Bowman: You won’t deploy ground troops to Iran for two or three weeks. It just makes no sense. Then again, you’re left scratching your head when you hear what he was saying. He is right about attacking the Navy and their Air Force and their missile infrastructure. Yes, there is no doubt that they have been badly weakened, but they are still in power, and they control the Strait of Hormuz.
KELLY: I’m wondering, if I were listening to this speech in Brussels, in London, in Paris, in Berlin, among NATO allies, there would be – there would be questions about whether Trump would continue – he’s giving little speeches against NATO and threatening to pull out and saying that they’re not pulling their weight. That was something I was listening to. We didn’t get it last night. Greg.
Myre: Yes. He did not take the name of NATO or the names of European countries. However, he repeated the phrase that these unspecified countries need to develop some delayed courage, I believe that was the phrase, and take the Strait of Hormuz. And we’re seeing some of this today. Britain is hosting a virtual meeting with 35 countries to talk about ways to open the strait.
BOWMAN: You know, I talked to a European military official who said he believed Europe would eventually get involved in some kind of naval effort to open the Strait of Hormuz. And he said one reason for that is that the price of liquefied natural gas in Europe has doubled in the past month. “Our populations will demand that our governments get involved and reopen the Strait of Hormuz,” he said. So I think you’ll see them involved, but clearly, the US will take the lead, as they did during the tanker wars in the 1980s.
KELLY: That’s NPR’s Tom Bowman and Greg Myre on our national security podcast Sources and Methods. You can listen to our full episode wherever you get podcasts.
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