Trump Offers No Timeline Or Path Forward In Meandering Iran War Address

U.S. President Donald Trump, during a primetime address to the nation in the Cross Hall of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, April 1, 2026. Bloomberg via Getty ImagesLike this article? Keep independent journalism alive. Support HuffPost.WASHINGTON – In his first major speech about the war against Iran he began without consulting allies and without the consent of Congress, President Donald Trump offered no new timeline or plan on Wednesday for how the war will end and instead repeated his recent claims about it, including threats of war crimes and an assertion that the critical Strait of Hormuz would “naturally” open by itself soon.In a rare prime-time address to the nation, Trump did not provide any hints as to how he might bring the deployed service members without leaving Iran in charge of the strait that normally sees a fifth of all the world’s oil pass through it. Instead, he ran through the destruction he has already wreaked on Iran and how much worse he will make things for its citizens.Politics: Pottery Barn Rule Out, Trump’s ‘I Broke It, You Fix It’ Rule In“If there is no deal, we are going to hit each and every one of their electric generating plants, very hard and probably simultaneously,” Trump said.Destroying a country’s electrical infrastructure, critical to civilian life, is generally considered a violation of international law.Rather than give Americans a better sense of when his war would end, Trump instead compared the one month it has lasted so far to longer wars the nation has fought over the past decades.“It’s very important that we keep this conflict in perspective. American involvement in World War I lasted one year, seven months and five days. World War II lasted for three years, eight months and 25 days. The Korean War lasted for three years, one month and two days. The Vietnam War lasted for 19 years, five months and 29 days. Iraq went on for eight years, eight months and 28 days,” Trump said.Politics: 'Bad Publicity!': Trump Weirdly Suggests This Official Is To Blame For His Media TroublesThe president, as he has countless times, again drew a fantasy portrait of the nuclear deal that had been negotiated by former President Barack Obama, which had limited how much nuclear material Iran could have and mandated an intrusive regime of inspections. Trump withdrew from the agreement during his first term in office, which was followed by Iran resuming its production of higher-grade uranium.“I terminated Barack Hussein Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, a disaster. Obama gave them $1.7 billion in cash green, green cash. Took it out of banks from Virginia, D.C., then Maryland, all the cash they had, flew it by airplanes in an attempt to buy their respect and loyalty. But it didn’t work,” he said — failing to mention that his war permitted Iran to sell its own oil at much higher prices since it began, which has already netted the nation some 10 times as much money.Trump’s Wednesday announcement is the latest in a dizzying series of contradictory claims about the war since its start. Trump originally promised that the U.S. Navy would ****** tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. That never happened.He claimed repeatedly that the war was over and that the United States had won, even as he continued ordering more air attacks. He claimed he was negotiating with Iran to end the war while also claiming he was killing everyone he might negotiate with.Politics: Donald Trump Reacts To ****** Bombshell About Kristi Noem's HusbandAnd he claimed the war could not end unless Iran turned over its hundreds of pounds of enriched uranium, but then recently has said the nuclear fuel is buried so deep underground that Iran could never get it — and that he could, in any event, simply monitor it via reconnaissance satellites.Political UpdatesRepublican Leaders Reach Deal To Fund Department Of Homeland SecurityTrump Prime-Time Speech On Iran War, Artemis II Launch: Live UpdatesKristi Noem's Husband Breaks Silence On ****** BombshellRead the original on HuffPost