U.S. President Donald Trump has said he is not ruling out the deployment of American ground troops to Iran if the situation requires it, following recent U.S. strikes targeting the country’s military and political leadership.
Speaking to The Post on Monday, Trump said he would not make blanket promises against sending troops.
“I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground — like every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” he stated. “I say ‘probably don’t need them,’ [or] ‘if they were necessary.’”
The comments come after U.S. strikes that Trump described as aimed at “decapitating” Iran’s leadership structure. He previously told the Daily Mail that he estimated the conflict could last “four weeks or so,” but suggested on Monday that the timeline might be shorter.
“It’s going to go pretty quickly,” he said. “We’re right on schedule, way ahead of schedule in terms of leadership — 49 killed — and that was going to take, we figured, at least four weeks, and we did it in one day.”
Trump said the final decision to strike was made after talks in Geneva collapsed on Thursday, citing intelligence that Iran had resumed work on nuclear projects at undisclosed sites.
“We had very serious negotiations, and they were there, and then they pulled back,” he said.
According to the president, U.S. forces destroyed permanent facilities but later discovered activity at what he described as a “totally different site” linked to uranium enrichment efforts.
“They wanted to make a nuclear weapon, so we destroyed them completely,” Trump said. “So it was just time. I said, ‘Let’s go.’”
Despite early polling suggesting mixed public reaction, Trump insisted that most Americans support his actions and argued that preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons outweighed concerns about escalation.
“I think that the polling is very good, but I don’t care about polling. I have to do the right thing,” he said. “You cannot let Iran, who’s a nation that has been run by crazy people, have a nuclear weapon.”
He added that public backing may not be immediately visible but believes support exists.
“I think people are very impressed with what is happening, actually,” Trump said. “It’s like a silent majority.”
