President Donald Trump said Monday he believed the war against Iran was nearly complete, though he did not provide a specific date for a potential end to the conflict.
At a press conference Monday afternoon, he said the U.S. was "achieving major strides toward achieving our military objective," calling it "pretty well complete."
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The U.S. was continuing to target Iranian missile and drone manufacturing, the president said, but had left important targets intact for the moment, such as electricity production.
"We could take them all out in one day" if necessary, the president said.
"If we did not hit them, they were going to take over the Middle East."
Earlier on Monday in a phone interview with CBS News, President Trump suggested the war was "very complete, pretty much" and said the U.S. military was "very far" of its planned timeline.
The president's comments came after a day of market turmoil thanks to rising energy prices.
The price for a barrel of crude oil exceeded $100 on Monday for the first time since 2022 and approached $120 at its highest point.
"I knew oil prices would go up if I did this," the president allowed. "They've got up probably less than I thought they'd go up."
Shipping delays due to safety risks in the strait have continued to drive oil prices, and prices for oil products including gasoline and jet fuel, higher.
In his comments to CBS, regarding the vital Strait of Hormuz, President Trump said that he was "thinking about taking it over."
IRAN WAR AND OIL PRICES | Gas and travel prices could continue to spiral as tanker traffic stalls near Iran
The conflict with Iran spiraled wider over the weekend, as Iran struck against U.S. and Israeli targets in the region.
The state-owned Bapco refinery in Bahrain declared force majeure after Iranian drone strikes damaged the facility and wounded 32 people, including a two-month-old child. Saudi Arabia said it intercepted five drones targeting the Shaybah oil field. A government building in Kuwait City also caught fire over the weekend, and the United Arab Emirates scrambled gunships to shoot down Iranian drones.
At least 165 people died in an explosion at an elementary school in Iran in the first hours of the conflict, possibly due to a strike by a Tomahawk missile. On Monday, President Trump pushed back against the possibility that the missile had been launched by the U.S.
"Whether it's Iran or somebody else, the fact that a tomahawk, a tomahawk is very generic. It's sold to other countries, but that's being investigated right now," he said.
Iran over the weekend selected Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of its former leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to succeed him as supreme leader. Ali Khamenei was killed in initial airstrikes against Iran at the start of the war.
President Trump last Friday demanded Iran's "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER," and on Saturday warned the country faced "complete destruction."
RELATED NEWS | US service member dies from injuries sustained in Iranian attack in Saudi Arabia, US military says
The war has killed seven U.S. service members, the latest of whom died of injuries they sustained during an Iranian attack on American troops stationed in Saudi Arabia on March 1.
Six other service members were killed on March 1 in a drone strike at a U.S. military installation in Kuwait. They were members of the 103rd Sustainment Command based in Des Moines, Iowa.
