US President Donald Trump on Sunday defended United States' military action against Iran and rejected suggestions that he abandoned his long-standing pledge to avoid new wars, saying that preventing Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon was necessary to protect the United States and its allies.
In an exclusive interview with NBC's Meet the Press, Trump was asked whether the conflict contradicted a campaign promise he had repeated since 2015. "No. No," the US President replied when asked if he had broken that promise. "I had to stop a country, very powerful, very dangerous country from having a nuclear weapon because they'd use it," he said.
"I'm doing our country a service. It's America first." Trump disputed the premise that he had guaranteed the United States would never enter another conflict. "First of all, I didn't guarantee no war," he said. "I don't like these endless wars. This is not an endless war."
The President said he faced a choice between maintaining favourable economic conditions and confronting what he described as a growing nuclear threat from Iran. "At the hottest point in the history of our country, I took Scott Howard, I took Pete, I took everybody into a room.
I said, I have to do this country, this world, the Middle East, Israel, everybody a favour. You have Iran. They're going to have a nuclear weapon," he added. Trump said he had ended the Obama-era nuclear agreement with Iran and later authorised military action against Iranian nuclear facilities.
"I terminated the deal," he added. "Then I sent the B two bombers in about nine, 10 months ago. And they obliterated, totally obliterated the site." The President said that military intervention had significantly reduced Iran's capabilities. "We took over Venezuela in a matter of minutes.
We destroyed the capability of Iran in a matter of days. Nobody's ever seen anything like it," he added. Trump insisted the conflict would not become a prolonged military engagement in the Middle East. "We're not gonna be there," he said when asked whether the situation could turn into a quagmire.
"It's not a quagmire. I just wiped out the military of a very dangerous country and I wiped out the nuclear threat." He added that the United States was close to achieving its objectives. "We're almost finished. We're gonna either have a deal, a strong deal, a meaningful deal," Trump said.
"They (Iran) cannot have a nuclear weapon." Asked about the future course of US policy, Trump said diplomacy remained possible but warned that military options remained available. "I'm gonna do it either through negotiation where we're very close to a deal, or I'm gonna blow the hell out of them, to be honest with you," he added.
The dispute over Iran's nuclear programme has been a central issue in US foreign policy for more than two decades. Successive American administrations have sought to prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon through sanctions, diplomacy and international monitoring efforts.