Trump: Iran retaliations weaker than expected, diplomacy ‘much easier now’

Trump says Iran more likely to agree to negotiate an agreement “because they are getting beat up badly,” adding that Iran’s retaliatory strikes are only half the intensity US predicted before the war.

By World Israel News Staff

President Donald Trump suggested over the weekend that Iran will now be more likely to agree to American conditions for a nuclear deal, following the targeted killing of its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Speaking with CBS News by phone on Saturday night, the president touted the US and Israeli strikes on Iran, calling the start of the war “a great day for this country, a great day for the world.”

Trump said he believed the regime will display more flexibility following the strikes, which killed a number of senior officials, including Iran’s defense minister, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the chief of the military’s weapons of mass destruction development programs.

Diplomacy will be “much easier now than it was a day ago, obviously,” Trump said. “Because they are getting beat up badly.”

When asked whether he had any idea who would take Khamenei’s place at the helm of the Islamic Republic, Trump said: “Yes, I think so. There are some good candidates. I know exactly who, but I can’t tell you.”

The president also downplayed Iran’s massive retaliatory strikes on Saturday, targeting not only Israel but American bases across the Middle East, including in Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Kuwait, with reports that Iranian missiles were also launched toward a British military facility in Cyprus.

“It’s what we expected,” Trump said, before adding that prior to the outbreak of the war, the US had estimated a far larger response by Iran.

“We thought it’d be double,” Trump said, adding the situation could fluctuate. “Thus far, it’s been less than we thought.”