Trump Denies Being Pulled Into War By Israel

US President Donald Trump has disputed the suggestion that Israel’s plans to attack Iran prompted him to launch strikes, saying he might have “forced their hand” rather than the other way around.

“They were going to attack if we didn’t do it, they were going to attack first,” he said of Iran. “I felt strongly about that.”

“If anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand, but Israel was ready, and we were ready, and we’ve had a very, very powerful impact, because virtually everything they have has been knocked out. Now their missile count is going way down,” he said in the Oval Office.

A day earlier, Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested the president decided to launch attacks on Iran because the US believed Israel was poised to take unilateral action.

Trump said on Tuesday that new strikes targeted another set of Iranian leaders, asserting that the impact appears “pretty substantial.”

“There was another hit today on the new leadership, and it looks like that was pretty substantial,” he said from the Oval Office. “So they’re getting hit very hard.”

Trump did not specify who among Iran’s leadership was targeted or how many people the strikes had killed. The attack came after officials said an initial barrage of missiles over the weekend killed 49 Iranian officials, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

However, Iran continues to strike US targets and allies, prompting the US to close its embassies in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Lebanon and warning Americans to leave more than a dozen countries in the region.

At least 780 people have been killed by US and Israeli bombing across Iran, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported, citing the Iranian Red Crescent.

The price of gasoline in the US just had its largest one-day increase since 2005, as vessels have effectively stopped going through the critical Strait of Hormuz.

President Donald Trump praised the US military operation in Iran and said that “just about everything’s been knocked out” when discussing Tehran’s military installations.

“They have no navy. It’s been knocked out. They have no air force. It’s been knocked out. They have no air detection, that’s been knocked out. Their radar has been knocked out. And just about everything’s been knocked out,” the president said from the White House while meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Trump added, “We’re doing very well. We have a great military and they’re doing a fantastic job.”