President Donald Trump delivered a forceful defense of the U.S. military campaign against Iran at the NATO summit press conference in Ankara, Turkey, on Wednesday, pushing back sharply against a reporter’s suggestion that the operation had become a strategic dead end, and instead cataloging what he described as an overwhelming series of American military achievements.
When a reporter opened the exchange by characterizing Trump’s operation in Venezuela as a strategic dead end and asking why the president appeared unable to end the Iran war, Trump did not hesitate.
“I think we’re doing just the opposite,” Trump said. “The Iran war has been a tremendous military success. I was there for one reason — that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. I call it we denuclearize Iran, and that’s happened. They will never have a nuclear weapon. That stuff is so far down under a mountain — it’s a granite mountain that collapsed on top of it. It’ll take months to get it out.”
The president then turned to the broader military picture. “Look — they have no military left. Their air force is gone. Their ships are gone. 159 ships are gone. They’re at the bottom of the sea. Their radar is gone. Everything’s gone,” he said. “So when you say not a success, it’s a tremendous success.”
Trump’s remarks came after the president reiterated his goal to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, having already stated earlier in the day at the NATO summit: “They have no military left. Their Air Force is gone. Their ships are gone.”
The president also pointed to Iran’s economic collapse as additional evidence of success, citing an inflation rate he said had soared to levels incompatible with a functioning state. “The fake news likes to say how well they’re doing. They’re doing terribly,” Trump said. “They have 350 percent inflation. When the war started, they had like 5 or 6 percent.”
Trump acknowledged that Iran’s current leadership still wants some form of negotiated outcome but has — in his view — proven incapable of following through. “They want to make a deal, but they don’t know how to make a deal,” he said. “And then they go around shooting ships at night. I don’t like that.”
He offered a stark assessment of what Iran’s leadership succession has looked like over the course of the conflict. “Their leaders are gone. They had leaders, they’re gone. Then they had another set of leaders. They’re gone. Now they have another set of leaders. They may be gone. Who knows?” Trump paused before adding: “And you know what? I may be gone too, because I’m their number one target. It’s out all over the place.”
The comment about being a target was not rhetorical. CBS News reported that Trump acknowledged Iran’s assassination threat directly, saying: “I may be gone, too, because I’m their No. 1 target,” while also adding that “I’m doing what’s right for the country.”
Trump also addressed the human toll that he attributed directly to the Iranian government, framing the military campaign as long overdue accountability for decades of Iranian aggression. “They’ve killed thousands, hundreds of thousands of people. They killed 52,000 protesters over the last three months,” he said. “Don’t forget — what we did should have been done 47 years ago. They were the bully of the Middle East.”
Separately, Trump said of Iran’s leadership: “They were the bully of the Middle East, so they’re a much different country now. Everything’s gone, their leaders are gone. They had leaders, they’re gone, and they had another set of leaders, they’re gone, now they have another set of leaders, they may be gone, who knows?”
On the nuclear question specifically, Trump returned to the core of what he has consistently described as his singular objective. Trump said his administration would accomplish the “denuclearization of Iran,” declaring: “We’re going to de-nuke it. We’re not going to let them, because they’re crazy, and they can’t have a nuclear weapon.”
The contrast between Trump’s characterization and the situation on the ground is significant. CENTCOM announced an additional round of strikes on Wednesday, stating that forces “have started conducting additional strikes against Iran to further degrade their ability to threaten freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.” Active combat operations were ongoing even as Trump argued the campaign had already achieved its most essential goals
The European Union’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas said Wednesday that the back-and-forth strikes between Iran and the U.S. “further complicate already fraught talks to end the war.” The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for de-escalation, with a spokesman saying Guterres “calls on all parties to exercise maximum restraint, avoid any further escalatory action, and take immediate steps to de-escalate.”
Trump, for his part, had no interest in entertaining the de-escalation framework. From his vantage point at the NATO summit podium, the press conference served as an occasion to declare the Iran campaign not a quagmire but a triumph — one that may not be fully over, but whose core objective, in his telling, has already been achieved.
“When you say we’re not doing well — I think we’re doing phenomenally well,” Trump said. “Our military has been incredible.”