Trump says US may have gone too far in killing Iranian leaders, at Iowa rally
US President Donald Trump has said they may have gone a bit too far in killing Iranian leaders. He made the remark at a rally in Dubuque, Iowa, on Sunday (November 1) local time.
At the rally, Trump said the United States had destroyed Iran's navy and air force, destroyed their anti-aircraft radar and killed their leaders. But, he said, we probably went a little too far with their leaders, which nobody talks about.
While talks between the United States and Iran were under way, the United States and Israel carried out a joint attack on Iran on February 28. Iran's former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several other senior leaders and military commanders were killed in that attack.
At the rally, Trump argued in favour of attacking Iran. He claimed it was Iran, not the United States, that started this war, and that they are finishing it. He said he had protected his country from the world's number one state sponsor of terrorism.
Trump also said Iran has been attacking the United States since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. He also blamed Iran for the attack on the US warship USS Cole off Aden, Yemen, in 2000, although al-Qaeda had claimed responsibility for that attack at the time.
Trump also blamed Iran for US soldiers killed by roadside bombs planted in Iraq. He said they killed Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, in revenge for those bomb attacks. The US president described him as the father of the roadside bomb.
Qasem Soleimani was killed in a US attack in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2020. Trump was in power in his first term that year.
Saying that through these acts Iran had already started a war against the United States, Trump said: They started this war. We did not start it. We are finishing the war. We are defeating them very badly.
