President Donald Trump said on Nov. 9 that additional military action in Iran was “quite unlikely” but said the United States will be “locked and loaded” if needed.
“Iran militarily is effectively over,” Trump said on Monday. “We’re just keeping it the status quo, and we’re doing that really at the behest of countries that are their neighbors.”
“They’re talking to us, and they’re talking very politely. And we’ll see what happens. But there’s a good chance that that could get ended.”
Trump’s comments came during a press conference after he met with Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, Qatar’s prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, at the White House on Monday. Qatar has served as an intermediary between the United States and Iran.
Trump described Iran on Monday as a “failing country” and reiterated his previous claims that Tehran is not paying its military and that both the regime’s navy and air force have been decimated. He said that Iran’s military is “essentially gone” following the conflict.
“At the conclusion of the military engagement, the American people and the people of the world will be far safer and more secure than they’ve been in many, many years because Iran was killing many people,” Trump said. “That war was started in 1979. We didn’t start the war; they did.”
During Monday’s press conference, Trump described the U.S. naval blockade of ships attempting to enter or leave Iranian ports as the “greatest military blockade ever.”
In a Truth Social post on Monday afternoon, Trump said that Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other countries preferred that the United States continue its naval blockade against Iran in the Strait of Hormuz. He added that the countries also wanted the United States to continue the operation overseen by the task force U.S. Central Command launched on Saturday, dubbed Task Force Iron Gate, which aims to prevent Iran from transporting weapons and generating illegal revenue using ground transit routes.
“All have agreed that Iran cannot have a Nuclear Weapon — That is non-negotiable!” Trump wrote. “Should there be any change with respect to developments in the Middle East, the United States of America is ‘locked and loaded’ and ready to go. At this point, however, that seems to be quite unlikely.”
In his Truth Social post, Trump said the entire Middle East is protected against the dangers and threats posed by the Iranian regime. He added that there is “positive momentum” toward an end to the military conflict in Iran.
Trump told reporters Monday that while Iran has been “very much decapitated,” the regime is still the bully of the Middle East. He said his administration wants to ensure that there is a long-term solution with Iran and doubled down on his position that Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon.
The president said that his administration is continuing the “status quo” with its economic pressure campaign targeting Iran and hopes that a deal will ultimately be reached between Washington and Tehran.
“The military action doesn’t seem to be [a] very necessary thing, but we’re locked and loaded, ready to go for any reason that changes,” Trump said.
The president’s press conference on Monday came after he acknowledged in an interview with Fox News last week that the Iran war played a role in the Republican Party’s midterm election losses. The Democratic Party won sweeping victories in both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives last Tuesday.
On Nov. 4, Vice President JD Vance released a statement on X citing the Iran war as the reason why Republicans lost the election.
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