US President Donald Trump said on Monday he wants to "take the oil" in Iran and floated the idea of capturing the Iranian export hub on Kharg Island as the war entered its second month.
In an interview to UK daily The Financial Times, Trump compared the potential move with the US approach in Venezuela, where he noted Washington's intention to control the oil industry "indefinitely" following the abduction of President Nicolas Maduro in January.
"To be honest with you, my favourite thing is to take the oil in Iran, but some stupid people back in the US say, ‘Why are you doing that?' But they're stupid people," he said. "Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don't. We have a lot of options,” Trump told the FT. “It would also mean we had to be there [in Kharg Island] for a while."
Trump said the US has "lots of alternatives" and naval assets in the region, when asked if he is considering troops on the ground in Iran.
"I just have lots of alternates!" "We have tremendous numbers of ships over there. We don't need them all because of, you know, the power... Just like we're ahead of schedule on the White House ballroom, we're ahead of schedule with Iran! We're weeks ahead of schedule!" the president said.
Claiming success in achieving the goal of regime change in Tehran, Trump assured that he would "make a deal" with the new leadership in Iran. "I think we'll make a deal with them, pretty sure...but we've had regime change," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, citing the number of Iranian leaders killed in the month-long war.
"We're dealing with different people than anybody's dealt with before. It's a whole different group of people. So I would consider that regime change," Trump said.
Trump also said indirect negotiations between the US and Iran, facilitated by Pakistan, were ongoing and making positive progress. But he declined to offer specific details when asked if a ceasefire deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz could be reached in the coming days.
"We've got about 3,000 targets left – we've bombed 13,000 targets – and another couple of thousand targets to go... A deal could be made fairly quickly," Trump said.
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