President Trump insisted that the war in Iran is “very close to over” — while bragging that the US military could wipe out the Islamic Republic’s bridges and power plants in as little as an hour if a deal isn’t reached soon.
“I think it’s close to over. I view it as very close to being over,” Trump told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo in an interview that aired Wednesday.
Trump, who signaled a second round of cease-fire talks could resume within days, predicted the regime would quickly cripple if the US chose to resume its barrage of attacks.
“We’ve obliterated them,” he said.
“I don’t know how much longer they can survive. I don’t know how much longer they can go because they’ve been hit very hard.”
“We could take out every one of their bridges in one hour. We could take out every one of their power plants, electric power plants, in one hour,” Trump added.
“We don’t want to do that, because some day you have to rebuild, and it takes you 10 years to rebuild the bridge, even if you’re Trump, it takes a long time.”
Trump was adamant, too, that Iran would have a nuclear weapon if he didn’t wage war against Tehran.
“I had to go to a war,” he said.
“If I didn’t do that right now, you would have Iran with a nuclear weapon. And if they had a nuclear weapon, you would be calling everybody over there ‘Sir.’ And you don’t want to do that.”
“If I pulled up stakes right now, it would take them 20 years to rebuild that country. And we’re not finished,” he continued.
“We’ll see what happens. I think they want to make a deal very badly.”
It came as mediators moved closer Wednesday to extending the cease-fire between the United States and Iran — and restarting negotiations to salvage the fragile truce before it expires on April 22.
As the US blockade on Iranian ports went into effect, Trump told The Post on Tuesday that additional peace talks “could be happening over next two days” in Pakistan.
The war, now in its seventh week, has jolted markets and rattled the global economy as shipping has been cut off and airstrikes have torn through military and civilian infrastructure across the region.
Yet whether the fragile ceasefire would hold appeared increasingly uncertain as the U.S. pressed ahead with its blockade, which threatens to sever Iran from economic lifelines it has relied on since the war began.
With Post wires
