Exclusive: Trump floats "off ramps" after attacking Iran [View all]

Source: Axios

...What they're saying: "I can go long and take over the whole thing, or end it in two or three days and tell the Iranians: 'See you again in a few years if you start rebuilding [your nuclear and missile programs]," Trump said in a five-minute phone interview from Mar-a-Lago.
"In any case, it will take them several years to recover from this attack," he predicted.

Why it matters: The comments offer the first real window into Trump's thinking about how this ends — and suggest he's still open to a diplomatic solution, even after U.S.-Iran nuclear talks collapsed in Geneva.
A short operation followed by new ultimatums would be a dramatically different outcome than the regime change that some U.S. and Israeli officials have described as the goal.
Trump is facing domestic pressure, including from his MAGA base, to avoid a prolonged Middle East intervention.

Driving the news: Trump cited two main reasons for launching the strikes — the first being the failure of negotiations this week led by his envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
"The Iranians got close and then pulled back — close and then pulled back. I understood from that that they don't really want a deal," he said.

The second reason was Iran's conduct over the last several decades.
Trump said that while writing his speech Friday announcing the attack, he asked his team to compile every Iranian-linked attack around the world over the past 25 years.
"I saw that every month they did something bad, blew something up or killed someone," he told Axios.



Read more: https://www.axios.com/2026/02/28/trump-iran-war-israel-off-ramps