{"id":334880,"date":"2026-03-08T05:03:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T05:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/334880\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T05:03:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T05:03:06","slug":"trump-vague-on-irans-unconditional-surrender-as-he-refuses-to-rule-out-us-troop-deployment-us-israel-war-on-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/334880\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump vague on Iran\u2019s \u2018unconditional surrender\u2019 as he refuses to rule out US troop deployment | US-Israel war on Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump<\/a> on Saturday offered only a vague description of what he meant by his demand for an unconditional surrender by Iran\u2019s current regime, while leaving open the possibility of deploying American troops on the ground but ruling out asking Kurdish forces to mount an invasion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said unconditional. It\u2019s where they cry uncle or when they can\u2019t fight any longer and there\u2019s nobody around to cry uncle \u2014 that could happen too,\u201d Trump said<\/a> when pressed by the Guardian aboard Air Force One.<\/p>\n

The lack of specifics in Trump\u2019s response made it difficult to ascertain his political endgame for the conflict, an issue that has dogged the White House as it faces scrutiny about what the president wants from Iran and how he would play a role in selecting its next leader.<\/p>\n

Trump has been more consistent with his military objectives and has said for days he could send US troops. Still, he caveated using ground troops to secure the enriched uranium, believed to be stored at Iran\u2019s nuclear sites the US bombed last year, as a possibility for later in the conflict.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t talked about it,\u201d Trump said. \u201cAt some point maybe we will. It would be a great thing. Right now we\u2019re just decimating them. We haven\u2019t gone after it but something we could do later on. We wouldn\u2019t do it now.\u201d<\/p>\n

It also appeared that Trump had made a final decision on not using the Kurds to mount an invasion, acknowledging that it would complicate a fraught situation despite the idea buzzing around Washington after news outlets reported they had been armed by the CIA.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want the Kurds going in,\u201d Trump said. \u201cThey\u2019re willing to go in, but I\u2019ve told them I don\u2019t want them going in. The war\u2019s complicated enough without getting the Kurds involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s extended remarks came hours after he traveled<\/a> to Dover air force base in Delaware to attend, with JD Vance and defense secretary Pete Hegseth, the so-called dignified transfer of six US service members killed in the opening days of his war against Iran.<\/p>\n

The dignified transfer took place under a hazy gray sky that enveloped the entirety of the base and the C17 Globemaster transport aircraft that carried the deceased, a scene only punctuated by Trump\u2019s bright white baseball cap emblazoned with the gold letters \u201cUSA\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump saluted each of the six flag-draped transfer cases as he watched two teams carry them into waiting vans. Afterward, he told reporters the moment had not made him think twice about continuing with the Iran war.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, we\u2019re winning the war by a lot. We decimated their whole evil empire. It will continue I\u2019m sure for a little while but I\u2019m very proud of the people,\u201d Trump said. Later, he added deaths were \u201ca part of war\u201d.<\/p>\n

The conflict has only expanded since Trump gave the green light for the US to join Israel in conducting airstrikes against Iran one week ago, including a series of strikes that killed its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who had been meeting with other top leaders at a compound in Tehran.<\/p>\n

In the initial days of the war, Trump suggested in interviews that the campaign would last roughly four weeks. But the administration has since shifted its position, and some officials have warned it could last for months.<\/p>\n

Trump was non-committal on how long he expected the war to continue on Saturday, saying he didn\u2019t know. \u201cWhatever it takes,\u201d Trump answered to reporters, even as he later described the war as a \u201cshort excursion\u201d.<\/p>\n

He also blamed Iran for strikes that destroyed a girl\u2019s elementary school in the south of the country that killed at least 175 people, many of them children. A Pentagon investigation is ongoing but forensic analysis by the New York Times<\/a>, CNN<\/a> and the Associated Press<\/a> gave it a high likelihood it was a precision strike by the US that occurred at the same time as attacks on an adjacent naval base operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, in my opinion, based on what I\u2019ve seen, that was done by Iran,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

After the defense secretary declined to back the president, saying only that the matter was under investigation, Trump repeated his claim. \u201cIt was done by Iran. They\u2019re very inaccurate as you know with their munitions. They have no accuracy whatsoever. It was done by Iran,\u201d he insisted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump on Saturday offered only a vague description of what he meant by his demand for an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-334880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}