Trump Might Send US Troops to Iran

President Donald Trump said Monday that he is not ruling out sending U.S. ground troops — “boots on the ground” — into Iran “if they were necessary,” as he touted the early success of Operation Epic Fury and predicted that the conflict would conclude within weeks.

In an interview with the New York Post, Trump said he would not make blanket promises about avoiding boots on the ground following weekend strikes targeting Iran’s military and political leadership.

“I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground — like every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” Trump told the Post. “I say ‘probably don’t need them,’ [or] ‘if they were necessary.’”

The president’s remarks come after U.S. forces launched strikes Saturday aimed at what he described as efforts to “decapitate” Tehran’s leadership structure and halt suspected nuclear activity.

Trump said the operation was moving faster than expected and had already achieved key objectives.

“It’s going to go pretty quickly,” Trump told the Post, suggesting the conflict could wrap up sooner than he initially estimated. “We’re right on schedule, way ahead of schedule in terms of leadership — 49 killed — and that was, you know, going to take, we figured, at least four weeks, and we did it in one day.”

Trump had told the Daily Mail on Sunday that he expected the war to last “four weeks or so,” though he signaled Monday that timeline could shrink given what he characterized as rapid progress.