Washington, May 20 (IANS) US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that negotiations with Iran were taking longer than expected and suggested that he could pursue tougher options if diplomacy fails.
Trump told reporters at the White House that he would prefer a limited level of violence over a wider conflict in the region.
“Ideally, I’d like to see a few people kill as opposed to a lot,” Trump said when asked about a possible Iran arrangement linked to the Strait of Hormuz. “We do it another way, but I’d like to see a few.”
Trump indicated there was rising public frustration inside Iran because of worsening living conditions.
“There’s a lot of anger now in Iran, cause people are living so badly,” he said. “There’s a lot of foment that we haven’t seen so much.”
Asked if negotiations had taken longer than expected, Trump compared the current situation with long US military engagements abroad.
“You were in Afghanistan, these other places, 10 years,” he said. “You were in Iraq. How long were you in Iraq?… You were in Korea for seven years.”
He argued that recent US military operations had resulted in fewer American casualties than previous wars.
“In other wars, you lost hundreds of thousands of people,” Trump said. “Here we lost 13 people. Now, 13 people were too much?
Trump also claimed the US had achieved major strategic gains without prolonged military occupations.
“We essentially took over Iran,” he said, without elaborating further.
–IANS
lkj/dan