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U.S. President Donald Trump said Saturday that Washington deliberately avoided targeting Iran’s military during its campaign against Tehran, arguing that past conflicts have demonstrated the risks of dismantling a country’s institutions and armed forces.
Trump said the United States “left the military alone” despite carrying out strikes against other elements of Iran’s leadership.
“People would be surprised to hear that, because mistakes have been made in wars where you wipe out everybody, and then you have a country that, for 40 years, can never rebuild,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News.
He pointed to Iraq as an example of what he described as a failed U.S. strategy in previous conflicts.
“You look at what happened with Iraq; we did so badly, that it was such a foolish thing,” he said.
Trump also repeated his claim that Iran would have obtained nuclear weapons had the United States not struck Iranian nuclear facilities with B-2 bombers last June.
He said he was “in no hurry” to finalize an agreement with Tehran despite ongoing negotiations.
“If you are in a hurry, you won't make a good deal,” Trump said, adding that the two sides were “close to a very good deal.”
The president said the key condition for any agreement was preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
“The one guarantee that I have to have is that there will be no nuclear weapons, they've agreed to that,” Trump said, although Iranian officials have not publicly confirmed such a provision.
“Slowly but surely, we're getting, I think, what we want, and if we don't get what we want, we're going to end it a different way,” he added.
Meanwhile, Iran said Sunday that it shot down a U.S. MQ-1 Predator military drone over its territorial waters.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said in a statement carried by the state-run IRNA news agency that the unmanned aircraft entered Iranian airspace during what it described as a “hostile operation” early Sunday.
According to the statement, the drone was detected and destroyed by Iranian air defense systems after crossing into Iran’s territorial waters.
“An aggressive MQ-1 drone belonging to the U.S. military, which entered Iranian airspace over territorial waters with the aim of carrying out a hostile operation, was identified and destroyed by the IRGC’s modern air defense missiles at dawn today,” the statement said.
The IRGC warned that Iran would respond decisively to any future acts of aggression.
Regional tensions have remained high since the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran in late February.
Tehran responded with attacks targeting Israel and U.S. allies in the Gulf while closing the Strait of Hormuz.
A ceasefire took effect on April 8 through Pakistani mediation, but subsequent talks in Islamabad failed to produce a lasting agreement. Trump later extended the truce indefinitely.
Iran and the United States have since continued exchanging proposals and counterproposals in an effort to resume direct negotiations and reach a permanent settlement.
U.S. officials have said a proposed framework could include a 60-day extension of the ceasefire and a roadmap for further talks.
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