Trump signals early end to war. Behind the scenes, advisers push for exit as midterms loom

United States President Donald Trump said on Tuesday, March 10, that he was eyeing an early end to the war. While he emphasised that the conflict with Iranian regime would not be over this week, he suggested that the Operation Epic Fury was way ahead of the schedule. But as he has suggested that the conflict with Iran could be short-lived, his advisers have reportedly advised him to map a path out of the war, hinting at a lengthy may spark political backlash.

Earlier on Monday, March 9, Donald Trump said that the war against Iran could be short-lived, but he left open the possibility of an escalation in fighting if global oil supplies are disrupted by the Islamic Republic.

On the election of a new Supreme Leader, Donald Trump asserted that he was disappointed and said, “We want a system that can lead to many years of peace, and if we can’t have that, we might as well get it over with right now.”

According to The Wall Street Journal, some officials in the Trump administration have said that a US withdrawal from the conflict would be difficult as long as Iran continued launching attacks on countries in the region and Israel maintained its strikes on Iranian targets.

Earlier too, Secretary of States Marco Rubio had said that the strikes on Iran by Israel was the reason America went ahead with sending barrage of missiles towards Iran. The US believed that if Israel attacked Iran, it would come back as “an attack against American forces.”

“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. And we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them, before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” he said, adding, “We believed they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us, and we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow.”

Speaking on Monday, President Donald Trump warned that the United States was ready to keep hitting Iranian positions if Tehran continued to disrupt oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, a key global energy route.

A senior administration official also said that Donald Trump would not stop the fighting until he can claim a satisfactory victory.

But people familar with the matter have said that Trump’s advisers, in the recent days, have advised him to map out a plan to exit the conflict. They have believed that a longer war – which is already into its 10th day – would deplete the support the US President enjoys. According to a recent poll, as many as 53% of American voters have opposed the military action against Iran.

Some Trump advisers have also flagged the midterms that are nearing and oil prices touching skies.

"When the price of gas and oil rise, so does everything else. Given affordability was already an issue, this leads to real challenges,” Stephen Moore, an outside economic adviser to Trump, was quoted as saying by WSJ.