US President Donald Trump said Thursday that he has no regrets over the war with Iran and would make the same decision again, insisting his administration succeeded in destroying Tehran's nuclear capability.
"I don't believe in the word regret. You can always question yourself a little bit. A few people have asked me that. If I had it to do again, I'd do exactly as I did. I took out their nuclear capability," Trump said in an interview with Laura Ingraham on Fox News.
Trump argued that letting Iran acquire a nuclear weapon would have posed an existential threat to Israel, the wider Middle East, and the United States itself.
"Supposing we were cruising and all of a sudden Iran has a nuclear weapon. They would use it. They're crazy. I deal with them. They're crazy. And they would use it," he said. "They would have wiped out Israel. They would have wiped out the Middle East. And they would have started hitting a couple of our cities."
He also pointed to the US stock market's performance as evidence the conflict had not hurt the economy, noting it was "at the all-time high" and had climbed from around 49,000 when he took office to the 53,000s since.
Trump further alleged that Iran was seeking to influence the upcoming midterm elections by working to unseat him, believing a Democratic-led Congress would be more permissive of its nuclear ambitions.
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"They're trying to do anything possible to get me out, because they think the Democrats will let them essentially have a nuclear weapon. They're not going to have a nuclear weapon," he said.
The remarks came a day after Trump warned at a Republican rally in Texas that the US had detected fresh activity at Iran's fortified Pickaxe Mountain facility. "We notice there's a little activity at Pickaxe. I would advise Iran not to get cute, because we will have to hit them very hard," he said.
Earlier Thursday, International Atomic Energy Agency director general Rafael Grossi confirmed that the UN nuclear watchdog had observed construction activity at Pickaxe Mountain.
Trump had issued a similar warning last week, telling reporters at the Oval Office that "Iran will not have a nuclear weapon," and that Washington could strike the site "very soon" if activity continued.
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