Trump Told Republicans the Iran War Could End Quickly as the Campaign Entered Its Second Week
Yemen Herald News 
United States President Donald Trump told congressional Republicans on 10 March 2026 that the war with Iran could be over quickly, as the joint American and Israeli campaign entered its second week. He said the operation had already stripped away much of Iran’s ability to strike back and predicted an outcome that would leave, in his phrase, a much safer world.
The campaign had opened on 28 February, after negotiations between Washington and Tehran collapsed. The American component was designated Operation Epic Fury and was run by US Central Command at the president’s direction, alongside Israeli forces. Its stated objectives were to destroy Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal and the industrial capacity behind it, disable the Iranian navy, sever Tehran’s support for allied armed groups across the region, and ensure that Iran never acquired a nuclear weapon.
In his remarks Trump put figures to the effort. He said roughly 80 percent of Iran’s missile launchers had been destroyed and that more than 5,000 targets had been struck, adding that some targets were being held in reserve. Those numbers came from the president rather than from an independent assessment, and battle damage claims made mid-campaign are rarely verifiable at the time.
He also sought to reassure his audience about the economic cost, describing the operation as a short-term excursion that might pause growth briefly but would not do lasting damage. Oil markets had reacted sharply to the fighting, and the status of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a large share of seaborne crude passes, was the central commercial question of the war.
Congressional support for the operation was not unanimous, but several Republican members publicly backed it, framing the campaign as the consequence of Iran’s refusal to reach a negotiated settlement. The White House made the same argument, saying the decision to authorise strikes followed repeated American attempts to open talks. Democrats and some libertarian-leaning Republicans raised war powers objections during the same period.
Much of the political attention that week had shifted to Tehran’s leadership. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, supreme leader since 1989, was killed in the opening phase of the joint strikes. On 8 March the Assembly of Experts named his 56-year-old son, Mojtaba Khamenei, to succeed him, under pressure from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Senior political figures, the IRGC and the regular armed forces moved quickly to pledge support.
Trump said he was disappointed by the choice and suggested it would preserve rather than change the pattern of Iranian policy. Asked about the risks facing the new supreme leader, he declined to be drawn, acknowledging only that the transition was taking place under exceptional pressure.
The succession was itself unusual. The Islamic Republic had changed supreme leader only once before, in 1989, and the elevation of a serving leader’s son had long been treated in Tehran as politically awkward because of the hereditary implication. That it happened within a week, during a war, indicated how much weight the Revolutionary Guards carried in the decision.
Trump’s prediction of a rapid conclusion proved partly right and partly premature. The fighting continued for another four weeks. The United States and Iran agreed a ceasefire on 7 and 8 April 2026 that also covered Israel, with Iran accepting the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. By the administration’s own accounting the operation ran 38 days.
The cost in that period was substantial on all sides. As of 23 March, thirteen American service personnel had been reported killed in the operation. Israel reported three soldiers and sixteen civilians killed, and France reported one soldier killed. Iranian casualties, military and civilian, were considerably higher and were never subject to an agreed independent count.
Iran’s response through March was sustained rather than decisive. Between 28 February and 4 March more than ninety attempted strikes on Israel were recorded, around twenty of which reached civilian areas. On 21 March two ballistic missiles evaded Israeli interception and hit the southern towns of Dimona and Arad, injuring close to 200 people, the heaviest single night of the war for Israeli civilians.
The conflict also spread through the region rather than staying between the principals. Hezbollah entered the exchange from Lebanon on 2 March. Israeli strikes reached the southern suburbs of Beirut, a limited ground operation began on 17 March, and later that month Israel announced plans to hold territory up to the Litani River. Bahrain and other Gulf states reported missile and drone attacks, including near the US naval facilities there.
For Yemen the war arrived mainly through the sea and the market. The Houthi movement launched strikes toward Israel during the period, and traffic through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden operated under elevated threat. Freight rates and war-risk insurance premiums rose on the routes that supply Yemeni ports, feeding into the cost of imported food, fuel and medicine in a country where most consumption is imported.
Independent analysts questioned at the time whether the campaign’s declared aims were internally consistent, noting that destroying Iran’s missile stocks, ending its regional partnerships and preventing any future nuclear capability were objectives with different timescales and different tests of success. The ceasefire in April settled the immediate fighting without resolving that question.
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