Before U.S. President Donald Trump delivered his national address on the evening of April 1 in the White House, Iran and Hezbollah launched heavy missile attacks at Israel. While Mr. Trump was speaking about America’s achievements in the war, including degrading Iran’s missile capability, missile alerts were issued in the UAE. After Mr. Trump concluded his speech, Iran launched another salvo of missiles at Israel.
What Trump said
There was much speculation on what Mr. Trump was going to say in his first primetime national address since the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Iran on February 28. Some said he would escalate with a ground attack, while others said he would chicken out or issue a timeline to wind up operations. But the U.S. leader did not say anything new. The speech was largely a reassertion of the claims he has been making over the past few weeks. He said the U.S. was “on track to complete all of America’s military objectives shortly”. He also said the U.S. was going to hit Iran “extremely hard” over the next two to three weeks. “We are going to bring them back to the Stone Ages.”
U.S. President Donald Trump’s address on Iran-Israel war: Key quotes
Mr. Trump said discussions were under way and asked the Iranians to make a deal. “If there is no deal, we are going to hit each and every one of their electric-generating plants very hard and properly simultaneously.” He said the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway connecting the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman that has been taken control of by Iran after the war, is not America’s problem. He had earlier asked America’s allies to send ships to reopen the Strait — which nobody is willing to do.
