The Trump administration said last week that the war had run its course, but the U.S. president and Israel’s prime minister in interviews on Sunday did not rule out renewed combat.
President Trump and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in separate interviews on Sunday that the war against Iran was not over, seeming to undermine messaging from the Trump administration last week that the conflict had run its course.
The interviews further compounded confusion about a military campaign marked by shifting goals and messaging since the American-Israeli attacks on Iran began in late February.
Mr. Trump, in an interview released by the syndicated news show “Full Measure,” said Iran had been defeated militarily. Yet when asked if it was accurate to say that combat operations were “over and done,” he refuted that assessment.
“No, I didn’t say that,” Mr. Trump said, adding that Iran was “defeated, but that doesn’t mean they are done.”
Mr. Trump estimated that about 70 percent of the United States’ targets in Iran had been hit. “We could go in for two more weeks and do every single target,” he added.
Mr. Netanyahu also told CBS’s “60 Minutes” in an interview that the conflict was not over, laying out a longer list of unfinished business to address.