US President Donald Trump said that if he weren’t President, both Israel and the entire Middle East ‘would be gone’ as he defended the war in Iran.
The President’s comments were broadcast on the same night that US and Iranian attacks ratcheted up again after a weeks-long lull in the now six month war.
Speaking to Fox News, Trump called the Iranian government ‘violent, evil people’ and repeated that they could never have a nuclear weapon, saying that both Israel and the entire region would be wiped off the map.
‘If they had a nuclear weapon, Israel would be gone. If I weren’t President, Israel would be gone and there would probably be no Middle East,’ he said.
Trump explained that Iran has now angered all of its allies and those who were ‘sort of neutral, got along with them’ once the war began.
‘As soon as the shooting started, they started aiming at Saudi Arabia, Qatar, at UAE, at Bahrain, at Kuwait, everybody was shocked. I was surprised.’
Trump continued.’I thought it was a very good thing because they lost all of the support they had.’
However, he fears that Iran’s turncoat behavior against its neighboring nations means ‘if they would have had a nuclear weapon, they would have fired it.’
‘I think the Middle East would have essentially been gone but Israel definitely would have been gone and I guess we would be next, or Europe or someplace,’ he added.
Trump reaffirmed his promise, however, that ‘you cannot let them have a nuclear weapon and they won’t have a nuclear weapon.’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ruled out any diplomatic deal with Iran as he backed Donald Trump’s new economic campaign earlier this week.
