President Donald Trump issued one of his most stark warnings yet regarding Iranian nuclear ambitions on Sunday, declaring that if Iran were ever to successfully acquire a nuclear weapon, Israel would face destruction within minutes and that under no circumstances would his administration permit such a scenario to unfold.
The comments came during an interview on Fox News‘ The Sunday Briefing, conducted hours after a foiled attempt on the President’s life at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, an event that had already placed questions of national and international security at the forefront of public discourse.
Reflecting on the scope of his foreign policy responsibilities and the threats he navigates daily as commander-in-chief, Trump was candid about the existential calculus that drives his approach to Iran. He described the presidency itself as uniquely dangerous for those willing to act consequentially, noting that most of his predecessors had avoided the hard decisions that the Iranian nuclear situation had demanded.
“We have to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. “Israel would get blown up within minutes from the time they got it. So we can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.”
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He continued, placing the failure to act squarely at the feet of previous administrations. “This should have been done by previous presidents,” he said. “It could have been done for years. 47 years it’s been going on, and nobody did anything about it.”
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Trump stated that he had accepted the political and personal cost of taking on the Iranian threat even at the expense of economic momentum. “I took the greatest economy we’ve ever had, and I said we’re going to have to take a little detour and stop that from happening,” he explained.
The President expressed confidence that the effort would conclude successfully and soon, while leaving no ambiguity about the terms of any negotiated outcome. Iran, he said, was well aware of the singular American demand. “Very simple — they cannot have a nuclear weapon,” he said. “Other than that, there’s no reason to meet.”
Trump also broadened the warning beyond Israel, noting that a nuclear Iran would pose an existential threat to Europe and ultimately to global stability, though he observed that geographic distance gave the United States a degree of strategic remove. He said the question of Iran’s nuclear dust — enriched materials that would need to be physically removed as part of any deal — remained central to ongoing negotiations……See More
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