Trump Says Fresh Iran Strikes 'Highly Unlikely' If Tehran Signs a Deal

President Donald Trump said Sunday that sending US forces back into war with Iran is “highly unlikely” so long as negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz keep making progress. In a 20-minute phone interview with CNN's Jim Sciutto, he repeated that phrase five times, framing it as conditional: “It depends on whether or not they sign a very strong agreement.”

Eight months after the war began, neither side has gained much. Military action has dried up, diplomacy has stalled, and oil tankers moving through the Strait of Hormuz are still coming under Iranian attack. Trump insisted US forces are positioned for a fresh round anyway, saying three aircraft carriers are in the region and “fully locked and loaded.”

The president said the US has already picked out infrastructure inside Iran it could hit, including power plants and bridges. “We have 38 bridges in our site that we can knock down in literally one hour,” he said, adding that he would prefer to leave them standing. “I don't like ripping down bridges,” he said. “The hardest thing to build is a bridge.”

Trump also painted an Iranian military running on fumes, claiming its air defenses have been wiped out and that it retains only 10% of its missile capacity and 15% of its drone capabilities because so many factories are gone. He pointed to 301% inflation and billions in frozen overseas assets, calling Iran “a failing nation” that is “withering away financially.”

Iranian hardliners, meanwhile, are reading last week's midterm elections — shaped in part by voter fatigue with an unpopular war — as proof of a weakened Trump presidency that might cave on demands to keep enriching uranium and controlling the strait. Diplomatic traffic has picked up since the vote: Qatar said Trump called Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani on Friday to discuss de-escalation, and Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, spoke with counterparts from nine countries a day earlier.

Trump closed the loop on the same note he opened with, saying another military campaign is “most likely” avoidable because “they want to make a deal so badly.”