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In an interview with Time magazine published on Thursday, President Donald Trump was asked to explain his shifting timeline for the Iran war.
While Trump initially said the conflict would last about eight weeks, the war has now entered its seventh month and shows no signs of permanently winding down.
Trump said the conflict has lasted this long “only because I wanted to go further.”
“I took them out. I could have stopped then, but I wanted to go further,” he said.
He continued: “When I said I was going to be there for a short period of time, I was, and then I decided I wanted to go further than that because I didn’t want to have them come back in some different form.”
The Time reporter also pointed to the contradiction in Trump calling himself the president of peace, while threatening to annihilate Iran on multiple occasions.
“By annihilating Iran, we’ve created peace in the world. With Iran, I don’t think you could ever have peace,” he said.
Trump did not address what making good on his threats would mean for innocent civilians on the ground.
Read more at Time:
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