March 10 (UPI) — U.S. President Donald Trump said the war with Iran was way “ahead of schedule” and that he expected it to end “very soon.”
The president told CBS News on Monday evening that the war was “very far ahead” of the 4-5 week schedule originally anticipated for the operation and that Iran now had no navy, no communications, no air force and its stocks of ballistic missiles were down to a “scatter.”
“Their drones are being blown up all over the place, including their manufacturing of drones. If you look, they have nothing left. There’s nothing left in a military sense,” Trump said.
Trump warned Tehran over threats it has made to attack any vessels, commercial or military, attempting to transit the Strait of Hormuz, saying the United States was ascendant.
‘They’ve shot everything they have to shoot, and they better not try anything cute or it’s going to be the end of that country. If they do anything bad, that would be the end of Iran and you’d never hear the name again,” he said.
Trump claimed the key waterway enabling Persian Gulf nations to export oil and gas to the rest of the world was now open but said he was still weighing using the U.S. military to take it over and potentially escort ships through the strait.
However, speaking later Monday night at a Republican Party event in Florida, Trump appeared to walk back his claim the war would be over soon, saying there was more to do.
“We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough. We go forward more determined than ever to achieve ultimate victory that will end this long-running danger once and for all,” he said.
He continued in that vein at a news conference afterward, saying he could end it immediately but that he wanted to keep going.
“We’ll not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated. We could call it a tremendous success right now — as we leave here, I could call it. Or we could go further, and we’re going to go further,” Trump told reporters.
Nevertheless, Trump’s comments had an immediate impact in the market, calming mounting global supply disruption fears over oil and sending the price of crude oil plummeting back below $100 per barrel from highs of as much as $119.50 earlier Monday.
The Nikkei 225 Index in Japan also rebounded from heavy losses to end Tuesday up 3% and major indices in Europe all trading higher in mid-morning trade.
Ahead of the start of trading in the United States early Tuesday, stock futures were pricing in expected gains with the Dow futures contract 145 points higher, S&P 500 futures up 17 points and Nasdaq 100 futures surging by 84 points.
Fears of a prolonged conflict with Iran and the impact that could have on Gulf countries’ ability to export oil and gas to the rest of the world via the Strait of Hormuz caused the price of oil to spike sharply as soon as the market in Asia opened on Monday.
Financial markets were also rattled over fears of the impact of high oil prices on inflation, interest rates and the global economy.
Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, was changing hands for between $91 and $93 a barrel on Tuesday, a price that is still around 47% higher than it was on Feb. 27, the day before the United States and Israel launched their airborne offensive against Iran.
West Texas Intermediate has pretty much tracked Brent, with very similar price movements.
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