Trump says Iran war is ‘very complete, pretty much’ as economic toll rises

 

Trump says Iran war is ‘very complete, pretty much’ as economic toll rises

 

President reassures Republicans that conflict is intended to be short lived but also says ‘we haven’t won enough’

 

Jason Burke in Jerusalem and Andrew Roth in Washington

Tue 10 Mar 2026 02.38 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/09/us-israel-strikes-iran-supreme-leader

 

Donald Trump has said that the war in Iran is “very complete, pretty much”, as the economic toll of the joint US-Israeli operation has risen, disrupting global oil trade and threatening to engulf the Middle East in a regional war.

 

Trump made the comments before a speech and press conference in Florida where he sought to emphasise that the US military campaign would be ending soon amid concerns from Republican allies that the US was being dragged into another long-term conflict in the region.

 

“I think the war is very complete, pretty much,” he said in a phone call with CBS News. “They have no navy, no communications, they’ve got no air force.”

 

Addressing Republicans on Monday afternoon, he said: “We took a little excursion because we felt we had to do that to get rid of some evil. I think you’ll see it’s going to be a short-term excursion.”

 

But he also indicated he was not yet declaring the US mission accomplished in Iran. “We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough,” he said.

 

US and Israeli warplanes launched new waves of strikes on targets across Iran on Monday, as large crowds took to the streets in Tehran in a defiant show of support for Mojtaba Khamenei, the country’s newly appointed supreme leader.

 

The conflict, now in its second week, continued to escalate, with fresh Iranian missile and drone attacks targeting Israel, US bases across the Middle East and energy infrastructure in the Gulf.

 

In Lebanon, Israel pressed its offensive against Hezbollah with raids in the south and airstrikes in Beirut, while an Iranian missile was shot down over Turkey. As drone strikes were reported in Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said France and its allies were preparing a “defensive” mission to the Gulf protect oil supplies.

 

In Tehran’s Enghelab Square on Monday, thousands gathered to offer allegiance to Iran’s new supreme leader, hours after the appointment was formally announced.

 

Chanting “Death to America, Death to Israel,” and “God is Great,” some waved Iranian flags, others banners bearing the portrait of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the new leader’s father, who was killed after 37 years in power by an Israeli airstrike in the first moments of the war. Armoured vehicles lined nearby roads and security personnel were stationed on the rooftops of surrounding buildings.

 

“The path of the martyred Imam Khamenei will carry on under the name of Khamenei,” said Hosseinali Eshkevari, a member of Iran’s assembly of experts, the body tasked with selecting the supreme leader.

 

Another member, Mohsen Heydari, said the late Ali Khamenei had recommended the selection of the candidate who is “hated by the enemy”.

 

Israel said it will target Iran’s new supreme leader, while the US president, Donald Trump, who has dismissed the younger Khamenei as a “lightweight”, criticised Mojtaba’s selection.

 

“I think they made a big mistake,” Trump told NBC. “I don’t know if it’s going to last. I think they made a mistake.”

 

The defiant rhetoric in Tehran and the appointment of Khamenei, who is seen by analysts as a hardliner with close ties to the Revolutionary Guards, intensified fears that the conflict could last for weeks or even months and leave deep instability in its wake. Stock markets across the world fell sharply on Monday after oil prices surged. But after surging as high as $119.50 per barrel, the oil price fell back down after Trump suggested the war could end “very soon”.

 

Iran’s attacks in the strait of Hormuz have all but stopped tankers from using the key shipping lane through which a fifth of the world’s oil is carried.

 

Speaking during a visit to Cyprus to discuss regional security, Macron said a new naval mission would be aimed at escorting container ships and tankers in order to gradually reopen the strait of Hormuz after the end of “the hottest phase of the conflict”.

 

France has already sent about a dozen naval vessels, including its aircraft carrier strike group, to the Mediterranean, Red Sea and potentially the strait of Hormuz as part of defensive support to allies threatened by the conflict in the Middle East.

 

Iran’s security chief, Ali Larijani, said in a post on X on Monday that safe passage through the strait of Hormuz would not be restored “amid the fires ignited by the United States and Israel in the region”.

 

Analysts have said Iran is hoping that restricting the flow of oil to global markets and attacking energy infrastructure in the region will threaten sufficient damage to the global economy to force Trump to end the US offensive, and bring an end to the war on Tehran’s terms.

 

Late on Monday Trump said on social media: “If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far.”

 

The remark was an apparent response comments from a spokesperson for the paramilitary Revolutionary Guards, who said “Iran will determine when the war ends.”

 

Neither the US, Israel nor the Gulf states that have born the brunt of the Iranian attacks currently appear ready to consider concessions, however.

 

On Monday, Kuwait’s emir, Sheikh Meshal al-Ahmad al-Sabah, described Iran’s strikes on the kingdom as “a brutal attack by a neighbouring Muslim country, which we consider a friend, even though we have not permitted the use of our land, airspace, or coasts for any military action against it.” Saudi Arabia said Tehran would be the “biggest loser” if it continues to attack Arab states.

 

In the United Arab Emirates, authorities said two people were wounded by shrapnel from the interception of Iranian missiles over the capital, Abu Dhabi. By mid-afternoon, the Emirati defence ministry said 15 ballistic missiles and 18 drones were fired on the country on Monday.

 

A total of 253 missiles and 1,440 drones have been launched at the UAE since the war began. Four foreign nationals have been killed in the UAE and 117 wounded, authorities said.

 

Iran also attacked Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain, where it hit a residential area, wounding 32 people, including several children, according to authorities. Another attack appeared to have started a fire at Bahrain’s only oil refinery, sending thick plumes of smoke into the air.

 

Bahrain has also accused Iran of damaging one of its desalination plants, though its electricity and water authority said supplies remained online. Desalination plants supply water to millions of residents in the region, raising new fears of catastrophic risks in parched desert nations.

 

Iran continues to target Israel with drones and ballistic missiles. A man was killed in central Israel in a missile strike, the first such death in Israel in a week, in which a woman was also wounded.

 

The war has killed at least 1,230 people in Iran, at least 397 in Lebanon and 11 in Israel, according to officials. Israel reported its first military deaths on Sunday, saying two combat engineers were killed in southern Lebanon, where it is fighting Hezbollah.

 

An Israeli military spokesperson accused Iran of targeting Israel’s cities with cluster bombs.

 

“We are seeing on a daily basis [that] Iran is deliberately targeting densely populated civilian areas,” the spokesperson said.

 

The official said that Israel was attacking “terrorist infrastructure” in Lebanon, which has been pulled deep into the war in the Middle East since Hezbollah opened fire to avenge the killing of Khamenei, triggering an Israeli offensive, which has so far killed more than 400 people there, according to Lebanese authorities.

 

The Israeli military has ordered inhabitants to leave the southern suburbs of Beirut, much of south Lebanon and parts of the eastern Bekaa valley region – all areas that have served as political and security strongholds of Hezbollah.

 

“Mass displacement across Lebanon has forced nearly 700,000 people – including around 200,000 children – from their homes, adding to the tens of thousands already uprooted from previous escalations,” Edouard Beigbeder, Unicef regional director, said.

 

“Children are being killed and injured at a horrifying rate, families are fleeing their homes in fear, and thousands of children are now sleeping in cold and overcrowded shelters,” he said.

 

In Turkey, Nato air defences intercepted a ballistic missile that entered the country’s airspace – the second such attack since the war started. President Tayyip Erdoğan said that Turkey’s main goal is to keep the country out of the “blaze” of the conflict.