Donald Trump asked on national television Saturday whether to annihilate Iran — then left Camp David and flew back to Washington to decide.
"If and when do I blow the entire nation up," Trump told Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst, framing the destruction of a country of 88 million people as a timing question. He cut his Camp David weekend short and returned to the White House by Saturday evening. Aides described him as being in "deciding mode," weighing three paths: a massive military strike against Iranian targets, a tightened economic squeeze, or a deal negotiated at the United Nations General Assembly, which opens Monday in New York.
The war Trump launched in March is now six months old. The United States has spent $38 billion prosecuting it. And his own ambassador cannot say when it ends.
Mike Waltz appeared on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday morning. Dana Bash asked for a timeline. "I wouldn't necessarily put a timeline on it," Waltz answered. Pressed on whether American forces could still be engaged in 2029, Waltz would not rule it out. That would be three years from now — and one year past the end of Trump’s second term. The ambassador offered no definition of what victory would look like or what conditions would trigger a withdrawal.
