Donald Trump’s advisers have been privately urging him to figure out an exit strategy for the war in Iran he started just over a week ago, a new report has claimed.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that some of the president’s aides have expressed concerns about the length of the war amid rising oil prices, citing the risk of political backlash that could further tank the 79-year-old’s already abysmal approval rating.
While Trump has declined to give an exact timeline for when U.S. and Israeli forces might stop their bombardment of Iran, he said on Monday, “We’re way ahead of schedule,” and that he thought it would be over “very soon.”
Speaking to reporters in Florida, he described the strikes as a “short excursion into something that should have been done for 47 years,” adding, “Forty-seven years it’s taken to do this, and no president had the guts to do it.”
Asked by a reporter about the possibility of implementing regime change, particularly in light of the news that slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s son was chosen to replace his father, Trump did not commit, instead saying, “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.”
The Journal quoted some White House officials as saying that as long as Iran continues to attack other countries in the region—including strikes on U.S. bases that have killed seven U.S. service members—a swift U.S. withdrawal was unlikely.
One senior administration official told the Journal that Trump won’t stop fighting “until he can claim a satisfactory victory,” noting the U.S. continues to have a military advantage.
Despite this, some advisers have reportedly been urging the president to devise a plan to pull the U.S. out of the region and argue that the military had achieved most of its objectives. According to the Journal, these advisers note that while many of the president’s supporters are still in favor of military action in Iran, an extended campaign could change things.
Several prominent right-wingers have criticized the president’s actions in Iran, including Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, both of whom expressed concerns about Israel’s influence on the president, while others who advocate for an ‘America First’ agenda have criticized him for neglecting domestic concerns to focus on foreign wars.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment. In a statement to the Wall Street Journal, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “This story is full of crap from anonymous sources who, I can guarantee, are not in the room with President Trump.”
“The president’s top aides are focused 24/7 on ensuring Operation Epic Fury continues to be a tremendous success, and the end of these operations will ultimately be determined by the commander in chief.”
Concerns about engaging in a drawn-out war come amid surging oil prices, with the cost soaring above $110 a barrel for the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 this week, and incredibly negative polling for both the president and his war.
A CNN poll found that nearly six in 10 Americans oppose the strikes on Iran, while 56 percent believe that despite the president’s claims of a short timeframe, a long-term military conflict is at least somewhat likely.
The president’s own approval ratings are somehow even worse, with his net approval rating falling to -21 points as just 38 percent of Americans surveyed approved of his job performance while 59 percent disapproved, resulting in the lowest approval rating of his second term.
The Journal also reports that the president’s advisers have received calls from Republicans concerned about the potential impact of Trump’s war on the upcoming midterm elections. An outside economic adviser to Trump, Stephen Moore, told the Journal, “When the price of gas and oil rise, so does everything else. Given affordability was already an issue, this leads to real challenges.”
The strikes on Iran, which began on Feb. 28, have killed an estimated 1,255 people in Iran, including dozens of schoolchildren and multiple senior political figures, including Khamenei. Seven U.S. service members have died in retaliatory strikes on U.S. bases across the Middle East.
