U.S. President Donald Trump (R) greets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (AP Photo)
President Donald Trump on April 20 said that Israel did not force his hand to launch the war with Iran.
“Israel never talked me into the war with Iran,” he wrote on Truth Social.
The president said that the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2003, attacks on Israel by the Hamas terrorist group added to his “lifelong opinion that IRAN CAN NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON.”
Trump also chided media and opinion polls and suggested that much of “what they say are lies and made up stories.”
Later in his post, Trump said Iranian regime officials should come to an agreement with the United States to have a “great and prosperous future.”
Since the conflict started on Feb. 28, the U.S. and Israeli militaries, in a joint operation, have launched numerous strikes on Iranian targets, killing dozens of top officials in the country, including former Iranian leader Ali Khamenei. Some Democratic lawmakers and online political pundits have asserted that Israeli officials have dragged the United States into another conflict in the Middle East.
On April 20, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) accused Trump of allowing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to dictate U.S. foreign policy.
“All Trump did is listen to Netanyahu—that’s his entire foreign policy,“ Khanna told Fox News. ”I resent the fact that Israel is going to tell the United States what to do. The American president should call the shots in this country.”
In remarks on March 3, Trump also rebuffed a reporter’s question about whether Israel had forced his hand. He said he believed that Iran was likely going to attack before the U.S.–Israeli strikes were launched.
“Did Netanyahu pull the United States into this war?” ABC News senior political correspondent Rachel Scott asked Trump at the time.
“No,” Trump said in response. “I might have forced their hand. You see, we were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first. They were going to attack. If we didn’t do it, they were going to attack first. I felt strongly about that.”
Trump’s comment on April 20 comes as a nearly two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran is due to expire on the evening of April 22, and as the U.S. military seized an Iranian container ship that attempted to evade its military blockade of Iran’s ports.
The U.S. military said it had fired on an Iranian-flagged cargo ship headed toward Iran’s Bandar Abbas port on April 19 after a six-hour standoff, disabling its engines. The U.S. Central Command on April 20 released a video showing Marines boarding the vessel.
Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that his envoys would arrive in Islamabad on the evening of April 20. Iranian state media said that Tehran had rejected new peace talks, citing the ongoing blockade and what it said were Washington’s shifting positions and “excessive demands.”
The president had earlier warned Iran that the United States would destroy every bridge and power plant in Iran if Tehran rejected the U.S. terms. Iran has said that if the United States were to attack its civilian infrastructure, it would hit power stations and desalination plants of Gulf Arab neighbors.
In interviews with media outlets since the early 1980s, Trump has been highly critical of the clerical regime that has controlled Iran since the 1979 revolution and has called for the U.S. military to intervene.
Reuters contributed to this report.
