President Donald Trump said Monday that he is not ruling out sending U.S. ground troops — “boots on the ground” — into Iran “if they were necessary,” as he touted the early success of Operation Epic Fury and predicted that the conflict would conclude within weeks.
In an interview with the New York Post, Trump said he would not make blanket promises about avoiding boots on the ground following weekend strikes targeting Iran’s military and political leadership.
“I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground — like every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” Trump told the Post. “I say ‘probably don’t need them,’ [or] ‘if they were necessary.’”
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The president’s remarks come after U.S. forces launched strikes Saturday aimed at what he described as efforts to “decapitate” Tehran’s leadership structure and halt suspected nuclear activity.
Trump said the operation was moving faster than expected and had already achieved key objectives.
“It’s going to go pretty quickly,” Trump told the Post, suggesting the conflict could wrap up sooner than he initially estimated. “We’re right on schedule, way ahead of schedule in terms of leadership — 49 killed — and that was, you know, going to take, we figured, at least four weeks, and we did it in one day.”
Trump had told the Daily Mail on Sunday that he expected the war to last “four weeks or so,” though he signaled Monday that timeline could shrink given what he characterized as rapid progress.
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“We’ll take it out. Whatever. It’s like everything else, we’ll take it out,” he added.
The president said he made the final decision to strike following what he described as unsuccessful diplomatic efforts in Geneva last week.
“We had very serious negotiations, and they were there, and then they pulled back,” Trump said, referring to Iranian representatives. He indicated that U.S. intelligence concluded Tehran was resuming nuclear work at undisclosed sites.
“They wanted to make a nuclear weapon, so we destroyed them completely, but we found they were in a totally different site — totally different — because the sites that we took out were permanent,” Trump told The Post. “They tried to use them, but they were totally, as I said correctly before, obliterated, right?
"So then we found them working on a totally different area, a totally different site, in order to make a nuclear weapon through enrichment — so it was just time.”
“I said, ‘Let’s go.’”
Smoke was seen rising over parts of Tehran following reported explosions in the city, according to wire service photographs published over the weekend.
Despite concerns about possible retaliation, Trump said he was not worried about Iran using terrorism in response to the strikes.
Asked about domestic reaction, Trump dismissed polling that showed limited public support for military action.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted Saturday and Sunday found that 27% of Americans approved of the strikes, while 43% disapproved and 29% were unsure.
Surveys conducted prior to the operation showed similar minority support for a potential war with Iran.
“I think that the polling is very good, but I don’t care about polling. I have to do the right thing. I have to do the right thing. This should have been done a long time ago,” Trump said.
The president argued that preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon outweighed the political risks or the potential for a broader regional conflict.
While he expressed confidence that U.S. forces could achieve their objectives without deploying ground troops, Trump stopped short of ruling out the possibility.
“Probably don’t need them,” he reiterated — but if they were necessary, he made clear, he would consider it.
The White House has not released additional details about the scope or duration of the operation, but Trump’s comments signal that the administration is prepared to escalate if military leaders determine it is required.
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