Donald Trump said Iran ignored the United States’ warnings to cease their pursuit of nuclear weapons – so the US had to strike.
He claimed the regime’s “rapidly” growing missile program posed a “very clear, colossal threat” to the Middle East and America.
“This was our last best chance to strike, what we’re doing right now, and eliminate the intolerable threats posed by this sick and sinister regime,” the president said.
“And they are indeed sick and sinister.”
In justifying the attack by US and Israeli forces, he claimed the Iranian leadership “already had missiles capable of hitting Europe and our bases both local and overseas, and would soon have had missiles capable of reaching our beautiful America”.
“First, we’re destroying Iran’s missile capabilities, and you see that happening on an hourly basis, and their capacity to produce brand-new ones,” he said. “Second, we’re annihilating their navy. We’ve knocked out already 10 ships. They’re at the bottom of the sea. Third, we’re ensuring that the world’s number one sponsor of terror can never obtain a nuclear weapon … And finally, we’re ensuring that the Iranian regime cannot continue to arm, fund and direct terrorist armies outside of their borders.”
The US bombed three Iranian nuclear sites in June, an intervention Trump called a “spectacular military success”.
“Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,” he said then.
Trump gives his first in-person address on the war in Iran overnight.AP